Akame ga Souls
by Starhammer
Summary: the Ashen One instead of linking the fire decided to let it fade only to end up in a world completely different to his own where he heads to the largest city, only to find it riddled with corruption and decides his fate is to cleanse it with the help of others in the form of a band of assassins called Night Raid
1. Chapter 1

**_CHAPTER 1: INCINERATE THE LIARS_**

The cart was traveling along the road it was peaceful, like it was every time before when they went down the road. The driver looked back "we're almost there"; all he got was silence like every other time he talked to the figure.

The figure was wearing a drab tattered cloak over armour made out of some kind black metal with the helmet being torn open under the eye slits. The driver could just barely make out the majestic gold engravings on the armour needless to say the figure was completely covered in armour save for the leggings which were indelibly stained and tattered trousers with leather boots, the only thing keeping them together being rope and bandage.

"Not that it matters but why do you wanna go to the capital?" he couldn't see the figure but he could tell he was glaring at him "*sigh* never mind". A few minutes later the horse that was pulling the cart along started acting up and soon the ground started shaking and then a creature three times the size of the cart emerges from the ground "EARTH DRAGON!" hearing this the cloaked figure springs into action wielding a long sword and a blue shield with a great sword on his back. But upon exiting the cart the figure looked at what the driver called a dragon confused. What he saw was a creature more alike to a giant brown bug than any variants of dragons that the figure saw.

He then proceeded to approach it "ARE YOU CRAZY, IT'LL KILL YOU" regardless of what the man said the figure forged on as he put the long sword and shield away, and then pulled the great sword from his back and drew it from its sheath. He then charged forward still not uttering a word or letting out a sound and swung the sword cleaving the creature in two, sending it flying a full three meters away from the cart in the process. "h-how did you do that" the figure just looked at him the driver couldn't see his face but he knew that the figure was annoyed by all the questions and decided to stop. "Anyway we should probably get going we don't want to risk running into more of them" the figure nodded in agreement feeling that they may become a problem if there were too many.

After the cart arrived in the city the figure got off and said goodbye, before heading off. But after a couple of meters he noticed some posters lining the wall, he couldn't read what they said but judging by the pictures and the numbers underneath, he could tell they were wanted posters, from his days as a bounty hunter. But it didn't matter to him he was there to look for answers not for his fortune. Because after all he had no idea where he was he just knew he wasn't at Lothric, the shrine or the kiln. His last memory was watching the fire keeper remove the first flame from the bonfire in the kiln, then for some reason he had attacked her. He attempted to stop himself but something or someone else was in control, and then everything went black, and when he awoke he was in a forest and noticed a cart in the clearing and headed towards it. After getting to the cart the driver was considerably shaken by the figures sudden appearance. But after pointing at a place on the map, the driver figured he needed a ride, and took him on the journey.

He forged on observing the environment, while taking note of the lack of undead and hollows in the city. He soon noticed people heading into a building not too far from him. The building appeared to be somewhat important, so he decided to head over, to see if he could find out where he was. But upon entering the building he noticed that they were signing a type of contract he decided to wait in the que that was lined up for one of the booths, so he could find out what it was. When he finally got to the end he noticed that the way the so-called contract was set out, they seemed to be recruiting soldiers from the general populace he noticed that they kicked someone out, "so you would like to enlist would you?" That confirmed the figures suspicions. "Alright just fill out the form and bring it back to-" the figure put the paper back on the desk and left the building, leaving the man at the desk confused. But as he was leaving the building, he tripped on the doorway and rolled onto his back making him look at the sky. And for once in his life he could see a beautiful sky a sky that he hadn't seen since his journey began. Even from when he awoke from that stone coffin he never saw such a beautiful blue sky.

But, to his disappointment, the view was immediately blocked by a woman bending over to look at him. The woman had messy blond hair with the sides reaching down past her waist, while wearing trousers and a top which reminded him of the desert pyromancer he found and promptly killed in the dreg heap's poisonous swamp after she had sent him to a bonfire by burning him alive (Needless to say it was extremely painful). "Hellooo" he just looks up at her confused "whatcha doin' there little guy. You'll be alright big sis is here to cheer you up" the figure stands up and notices his helmet fell off when he tripped. As he was trying to locate the helmet, the woman could see what he looked like. He had short brown hair and his eyes were two different colours one black and one blue and he seemed to be 16 to 18 years old. "Looking for this" the figure looks at her and notices she was holding his helmet. The figure proceeded to take it off of her while looking annoyed "so let me guess you came from the country side seeking fame and fortune am I right" he glares at her clearly showing a distaste for the question "wait you're not? Then why are you here?" the figure looks at his helmet "I don't know." the woman becomes confused at what he said "what do you mean you don't know?" "For one I don't know where I am" said the figure 'I don't usually know why I end up where I do. But there is always a purpose as to why' "well I can answer your questions" the figure looks at her sceptical "really?" "Yep, you've just gotta treat me to lunch!"

The woman and the figure were at the inn and she was on her third tankard of ale "man never too early in the for some hooch amiright*burp*" the figure was annoyed as to how much money she leeched "are you going to answer my questions? Or are you just going to keep drinking Ale?" The figure just wanted answers and didn't want to waste time that he could have been spending, finding said answers. "Sure I will you've just gotta answer one of mine" "well what is it?" the figure looked at her impatiently "Where did you get that money?" "I acquired them from someone I helped out a little while ago" this doesn't surprise her, as the figure didn't want the conversation to last longer "my turn what is this place" "simple it's the imperial capital didn't you know that." The figure thinks back to his hunting days "I've travelled around a lot and I've never heard of an imperial capital" this seemed to confuse the woman, but before she could ask another question "can you assist me in finding the answers I'm looking for" "sure I can help ya there I actually know someone who's very knowledgeable about the area he might be able to help you with that." The figure feels a bit of relief "But first your gonna need some money" the figure nods "nothings free there's always a cost regardless of what it is" "okay so how much ya got" the figure produces a small sack of gold coins "woo what do we have here" "money that someone gave me for protecting them from what they called an earth dragon" her eyes closed a bit "a big guy huh? With skills like that you could get far here" "depends on if I have to increase my status to get what I need" the woman gets up from her chair taking the coins with her "I'll bet our little encounters been more educational than you know kid. Anyways I'm gonna go talk with him you wait here ok" "don't be too long".

It's been a few hours since the woman left so the figure decided to rest so he could pass the time even though he had no need for it. A few more hours pass when the figure wakes up "why's she taking so long?" he wondered "hey buddy I'd like to go home sometime tonight you know" the figure looks back "sorry but I'm waiting for someone." "Yeah sorry to tell ya this son but she took your money and ran" he then proceeded to stand up considerably annoyed at the amount of time he wasted "well that's unfortunate" he headed out the door and to his right he noticed the bag that used to have his money in it "at least I still have the bag" he then proceeded to put it in the box on his belt to save time 

He then started wandering around with nothing really to do, and after a while he decided to rest to pass the time. But after a minute a carriage pulls by with what looked like soldiers driving it. And a young girl, with blonde hair and a blue dress stepped out and headed over to him. "Excuse me?" the figure looks at her and notices that she's writhing with souls "um… if you need a place to rest your head for the night your welcome to come home with me" the figure, as suspicious as he was when he brought Yoel of Londor to Firelink, said "sorry but I have no money" "hehe well if you did you wouldn't be here now would you" the two who were driving walked over to the figure and the girl "Lady Arya has a bit of a weakness for helping those with nowhere to go" "you really should accept her offer" the figure notices the soldiers also had some soul residue on them which made him more suspicious as the figure didn't have much trust since his encounter with the blonde woman from earlier "pretty please" the figure still needed to know where he was so he decided to take her up on the offer "fine" 'this'll be a pain' "great! Then let's go home."

They travelled to a mansion surrounded by trees. As the figure wonders how rich they were, and why they put their mansion in such a terrible strategic location. When they go inside Arya tells him to follow her to the dining room, there he meets what he assumes to be her parents "oh looks like Arya brought home another guest" the father radiates less souls than the guards but radiates them nonetheless "oh my so it would seem, how many does this make" "Mother!" the figure notices that the mother radiates the same amount of souls as Arya. "Thanks for having me here" 'this place is writhing with souls, why is there so many?' "why don't we bring out some tea for our guest" her father says "do you have any peanut butter cookies to go with them." the figure's favourite delicacy is peanut butter cookies hence why he asked "yes of course" after a minute or so the tea and cookies were on the table "so I assume you want to make a name for yourself in the imperial capital am I correct?" "No I'm not here for that" this doesn't seem to faze the man "Then why are you here?" the figure takes a sip of his tea "my curiosity. I wanted to see what this place was like." "I see did you come here alone" the figure tries to remember "I came alone" 'the soul of cinder doesn't count' "well I know someone in the military who could help satiate your curiosity by giving you a tour" "that would be appreciated thank you."

The couple told the figure that he can use one of their spare rooms for the night 'I've been a bit unlucky recently but it's finally panning out a little bit, but why do they have so much soul residue it's nearly impossible for a normal person to consume souls let alone radiate them. Somethings going on here, it's probably for the best that I'm alert at all times.' He notices that his weapons are a bit blunt and dinted 'But it wouldn't hurt to go over my equipment. And learning the written language could definitely help increase my understanding of this kingdom.' he proceeds to take all of his equipment out of his box and lay them on the bed and proceeds to examine each piece applying repair powder on each weapon except for one. After he finishes with the maintenance of his equipment he then places his equipment back in to the box before pulling a book from one of the shelves and examining it. After two hours he decided to call it a night and hops into the bed 'I hope tomorrows not as taxing as it was today.'

"Hey we should go to that shop next" "hnng… please wait milady". The figure looks at the pile of items Arya bought. "I see that Arya buys more than she needs. The last time I saw this many items was when my sister acquired her first allowance" he remembers how much she was scolded for buying so many items "well that shows that all women behave like this" "well I saw a similar pile when a noble came into the village with no idea on how to spend their money but yeah seems so." The soldier seems to ponder that for a second before going onto another topic "Oh and just so you know you see that castle over there… that is the centre of the entire empire. It's where everything happens" "I see so that's where the emperor makes the decisions for the country" the soldier scans the surroundings as if he was making sure no one was listening "well… not exactly" the soldier leans into the figures ear "there is an emperor but he's only a child. Our land is plagued by corruption… It's the minister who controls the emperor from the shadows" "minister" the soldier places a hand over his mouth "do not let your self be heard those who oppose are beheaded" 'that doesn't sound fun but that explains the residue of some of the areas' "the entire capital knows. And on top of that we're dealing with this scum" the soldier points to the same posters the figure saw when he arrived in the city. But this time he could read them "Night Raid?" "A band of assassins terrorising the area, as the name implies they tend to attack at night, high ranking officials and the upper class make up most of their targets. It's only wise to be very cautious" this attracts the figures attention "understood" 'judging from what he said this family may be next on their list' "but for now let's do something about that." he gestures to the giant box the two other soldiers are carrying "*sigh* this is going to be a long day."

When they arrive back at Arya's home the figure returns to his room to prepare himself in case they were attacked by Night Raid. In another part of the house Arya's mother was walking down the hall talking to herself "well well, it appears I can add another entry to my diary, what an addicting little hobby this is" in less than a second she was cleaved in two with the last thing she sees being her legs, with scissor blades above them, before falling to the ground. The one responsible for killing her is someone whose clothes look like they came from the east with purple hair and glasses, "I'm sorry."

"Wha…" the figure felt a few souls traveling towards him one appearing to have the same aura as Arya's mother 'seems like they came, but they were quicker than I expected I need to hurry' the figure ran out of the door grabbing two weapons and his helmet and ran down the hallway as fast as he could and noticed something outside of one of the windows "I was correct. It's them" outside the window five figures were in the air, suspended by wires with the only one he recognised being the one in the centre her name Akame.

The figure noticed one of the other figures talking to Akame and then she drops to the ground with another figure covered in armour. "I doubt there here for the money otherwise they'd try to ignore the guards! Not bring attention to them." 'I wonder how they fight it's best to know in case I have to defend myself' the first ran towards her eager or fearful of battle. But regardless she dispatched him faster than the figure thought. The second was quickly impaled with a spear by the armoured figure. And the third ran away as he was a coward. But, like the others, was dispatched with efficiency "that didn't last long" 'they're stronger than I thought. I need to find Arya and fast.'

"Hurry milady this way!" a soldier was running in the forest with Arya in tow "what's happening" "just get to the shed for now you'll be safe there" they were closing in on the shed and were almost at the door "there you are" they turn to see the figure in full armour and two katana's on his belt. "Great you made it. I'll hide the young lady and wait for the guards, see what you can do to stall the enemy until then got it" "wait what" a sound of someone landing is heard behind the figure. He turns to see Akame standing up he grabs the sheath of one of the katana and grabs the frayed hilt of the blade. She proceeds to run at him but before he could pull the blade from its sheathe, she says "you're not a target" "a target" she then jumps over him stepping on his head in the process causing him to drop the sword as it wasn't fastened properly. The last guard pulls a weapon over his shoulder the same type as the one that killed the third guard and started to fire shots at her, missing all of them as she dodged with such grace that the figure could only dream of, before promptly dispatching the guard slicing him in two.

Arya starts to back away scared of what would happen to her, Akame proceeds to walk towards Arya and raises her sword "you deserve this" but before her blade could come into contact with Arya the figure rush's forward and swings the second blade at her but she dodged away with the blade making partial contact with her face, scratching her cheek. The figure quickly places the blade back in its sheath "I told you, you were not a target, you don't have to die" "sorry but I can't let you kill an innocent girl without good reason" she nods her head "so you won't step aside" "well if I do I'll be abandoning my code so no I won't step aside." 'After all my code is all I have left.' "Then you've made your choice" the figure raises his sword still in its sheath and crosses his left arm over his right in a salute "yes I have" 'her skill is astounding and her agility out classes mine. And her sword has an ability similar to curse like the chaos blade but more fatal, I'll need to be careful around her I think it's best to play defensive to figure out how she attacks'

Akame rushes forward making a strike at his torso but bounces off of the armour that was covered by the cloak, the figure then makes a slash at her neck missing her as she steps back and jumps into the air and as she comes down kicks him in the back of the head knocking his helmet off in the process revealing his face with two red eyes staring at her focused with a held back bloodlust. She notices that he's trying to hold his bloodlust back as he takes a stance placing the blade into its sheath, and as he places it back into the sheath she notices that one of his eyes turned blue when he sheathed the blade.

After he took the stance Akame rushes him but before she could make a strike at his neck, it was parried knocking the blade away from its target. But she quickly redirects her attack going for the neck before being pulled back by someone the figure immediately recognised "what are you doing" Akame looks back at the one stopped her it was the woman who stole the figures money "we've got some time left, and I kind of owe this guy a favour I'm pretty sure he'd like to cap it in now" the figure looks at her in annoyance "you stole my money" "uh… yeah anyway earlier you assumed we were here to kill innocent people right? I think you might see things differently if you find out what's behind this door" she then kicks the door sending it flying it inwards.

"That was unnecessary" "here it is, welcome to the capital kid" what he saw confirmed all of his suspicions but the reasons were worse than what he had imagined, what he saw were corpses, multiple of them. "What is this?" "we learned that they fancied pickin' up newcomers from out of town and torture them to death for their own sick twisted entertainment, that's the reality of this 'happy' little family" 'Why did they do this, and why did they kill innocent people… *sigh* at least I found out why there was so much soul residue on the family' the figure then notices an old friend hanging from the roof.

"Karla." "Do you know that girl?" as Arya started to sneak away the woman grabbed her head "oopsie, you didn't really think we were through with you yet, did you sweetie pie" "did these people actually do this" the woman looks at him "yes they did and their guards are just as guilty for keeping it hidden" the figure was still trying to keep his emotions down to prevent an outburst.

"SHE'S LYING, I HAD NO IDEA ANYTHING LIKE THAT WAS GOING ON. WHO WOULD YOU BELIEVE THESE-THESE MURDERERS or me the one who saved you?" "A-Ashen, one?" 'That voice is that?' "Cornyx!" the figure feels surprised by the fact that two of his friends were in the same world "don't believe her ashen one, she's the one who killed Karla" the figure's suspicions were completely confirmed as soon as Cornyx told him.

"FINE, FINE SO I DID IT OK" the figure felt a flame burning his hand "THESE TRASH ARE NOTHING BUT WORTHLESS FILTH THEY'RE NOTHING BUT-BUT LIVE STOCK FOR ME TO USE AS I SEE FIT" for once in a very long time he was feeling anger "GARBAGE LIKE HER DOESN'T HAVE THE RIGHT TO SUCH BEAUTY, I'M ALWAYS HAVING TROUBLE TRYING TO LOOK LIKE THAT, SO I TREATED HER EXTRA SPECIAL, SHE SHOULD BE HONOURED THAT I GAVE HER SO MUCH ATTENTION UNGRATEFUL PIIIIIG!" "Sorry honey I don't mean to interrupt your little tantrum here but you are kind of disturbing" "I'll-" the figure sprints to Arya with his hand consumed by fire and grabs her face before Akame could finish her sentence "you shouldn't have called her a pig" and in one brief moment a sphere of fire appeared around them completely lighting up the area and incinerating the nearby flora.

And then when it stopped the figure was holding nothing but ash after he claps his hands to remove the dust the figure heads over to Cornyx "Thank you ashen one, it was necessary for me to see that." Cornyx starts to cough out blood "Cornyx!" the Figure pulls the bars of the cage apart with a surprising amount of strength "stay with me Cornyx" he says while looking calm 'what's happening to you' Akame tells the figure "it's the Lubulla virus. The mother enjoyed poisoning people with different medicines, she even kept a diary of each victims reactions… it's too late for him" "I see" the figure looks at Cornyx knowing his time was up but felt happy that his friend could finally die "don't be sorry Ashen one you expected this to happen to one of us sooner or later… you were a good pupil" "And you a good teacher" as Cornyx dies the figure tells him "may the flames guide thee" before collapsing, falling backwards, exhausted from the energy he spent Incinerating Arya with sacred flame.

Akame turns to leave "Let's go" "hey don't you think we should bring him with us" Akame turns back to face the woman "hm" the woman picks up the figure hoisting him over her shoulder "we could use some extra pairs of hands plus he seems to have some sort of imperial arms as well as a little luck on his side". They headed back to the building to re-join with the others "You're late what took you so long and who the hells that guy" "oh he's just a new recruit" the girl who spoke looked at him suspicious "then why's he out cold?" "Oh he just incinerated someone" the girl seems surprised at that remark "well that explains the light we saw" "anyway Bulat he's all yours" she hands the unconscious figure to the person she called Bulat and then they took off into the night.

 ** _END OF CHAPTER 1: INCINERATE THE LIARS_**


	2. Chapter 2

**_CHAPTER 2: INCINERATE THE CORRUPTION_**

The figure was sitting at the edge of a cliff reminiscing on the time he spent with his friends, Karla and Cornyx, (And the times he blew up the training area when he was trying to cast fireball or affinity) "*sigh* I'm gonna miss those training sessions with you two" 'but not the amount of times I blew up' soon after saying that the woman who the figure now knows is Leone attempts to sneak up on him. Only to be met with a dagger to her throat "please don't sneak up on me I have bad experiences with people doing that" he flashes back to when some dark spirits invaded him and as he was about to enter rooms with powerful opponents or light a bonfire he was usually met with a blade through his chest or a two tonne great sword in the back of his skull or spine. She lets out a nervous laugh "Yeah any way have you thought about joining us yet" "no. not yet" the figure needed time to think to weigh the pros and cons of joining them "well I'm gonna introduce you to the guys anyway!" she proceeds to drag him along with little resistance on his end. Up above Akame was watching the two proceed forward.

The figure finds himself in a room with Leone and a woman wearing an eastern style of clothing "oh he hasn't decided to join in spite of all that's happened?" Leone places her hand behind the back of her head "he's a little hesitant. So I was hoping you could give him a few words of encouragement, ok?" the woman places a finger to her chin "well since we showed you our hideout…" she then looks over at the figure with a sinister look. "if we can't convince you to join the team your dead." The figure looks at her 'Good luck with that' "that was more of a threat than a word of encouragement." "Just give it plenty of thought ok?" the figure looks at her and notices the title of the book she was reading 'how to mend your air headed ways… not much of an assassin if she can't concentrate' the figure then hears a loud voice behind them "What the hell!" he looks back to see a girl who seemed to be younger than the others "Leone, why did you bring this loser back to the hideout!" as she was pointing at the figure 'well she seems like a bitch' "he's one of us now" the girl walked forward "and did no one think to ask for my opinion!" she stares at the figure for a few seconds "I won't allow it. It's obvious you're not cut from the same professional cloth as the rest of the group... I mean just look at you" The figure was tired of her berating "your logic escapes me" "oh don't let it get to you. That's just Mine's way of saying hello" 'that doesn't excuse her way of acting'.

They then travel to what seems to be training grounds with the dummies and weapons lying around "this is our practice field where we go to let off some steam, oh and look who's already out here trying to work up a sweat." She gestures to a person in the middle of the field "that's Bulat" the figure takes note of his technique with a polearm and takes special note of the shockwave he created 'I could learn a thing or two from him' Bulat looks back at the figure "oh, aren't you the fella we picked up the other day" "how'd you know about that? Wait you were the figure in the armour weren't you." Bulat takes note of what he said "how do you figure that?" the Figure shrugs "I have an eye for sizing up weapons and armour, so it's easy to tell what belongs to whom." "Well the names Bulat" he extends his hand for the figure to shake it "hi." "And yes he's gay" the figure takes his hand away as soon as he can 'of course everyone's got something wrong with them'

Leone and the figure find themselves in the forest later on. He then hears someone talking to themselves "I'D GIVE ANYTHING FOR A PEAK AT THAT SMOKING HOT BODY!" "In that case, how about you give up two fingers" in less than a second he ends up on the ground "you never learn do you!" he starts screaming "next time I'll break your arm!" she then turns to the figure "this is Lubbock, as you can see he's a bit of an idiot" 'obviously'.

Afterwards Leone takes the figure to a stream during the tour "ok who to see next" "Please tell me there's not to many" she looks at him "hehehe, don't worry the next ones a cutie so try not to stare, she's stuffing her face by the fire over there". The figure notices a giant fire underneath a bird just as big with someone the figure knows well in front of it. It was Akame still with the non-caring face he saw the day before. When the figure remembered, he felt guilty for attacking her, she was trying to help but he didn't realize that. And as such he felt he should do what he can to apologize to her. But he didn't want to bring it up right now. "I see she's a skilled hunter" "yep Akame's our resident wild child." Akame looks back at the two and says "Leone have some." As she throws a piece of the bird to Leone "thanks!" Akame then looks at the figure and the figure feels uncomfortable wondering if she hates him for what he did "have you decided to join yet?" this annoys him as that seems to be on everyone's mind "I'm still on the fence" "then I'm sorry but I won't be sharing my dinner with you." 'That's fine with me. After all food is just a luxury for me'

Leone begins to walk towards the fire "is it just me or is everyone a little jacked up today" "that's because the boss is back today" 'the boss… wonder what they're like' Leone walks around the fire to see someone new presumably the boss "hey boss." The woman raises her hand in greeting "Hey" "did you bring me anything good?" the boss leans back "now why would I do that?" "Huh?" her hand which looks like it's covered in armour starts twitching "about one of your most recent assignments, I was told you completed it three days overdue." Leone starts running away as soon as she heard that, presumably scared of what would happen if the boss caught her, and in less time than the figure expected, she caught. Leone because, to his surprise, her arm shot out grabbing Leone's hair stopping her in her tracks as it started to drag her back "when facing a powerful opponent it's unwise to get caught up in the fun, shouldn't you know better than that by now." "Ok I learned my lesson, please let go of meee."

She lets go and her arm retracted back into its socket. "Anyway tell me about the boy!" Leone stands up "oh right, he's gonna be joining us" she says as she places an arm around the figure "I haven't agreed to joining all of you yet" "does he seem promising?" she says completely disregarding the figure as Leone looks at her "Absolutely" a long pause ensues allowing the figure to take a quick look at Akame to notice that she was listening intently "see all we want is for you to try, 'kay" "that's not what you said earlier" the Boss gets up and put's on a coat that was hanging off of her chair "Akame, go get everyone together, I want to hear about everything, including that boy" '*sigh* I can't catch a break can I.'

A few minutes later everyone was in a hall or meeting place of some kind and was giving the boss their reports from yesterday's events. "Thank you all, I think I understand the situation here, now then you there what is your name?" she says as she gestures to the figure 'my name?' the figure try's to remember his name but the only thing he remembers is what the keeper kept calling him "my name, is Ash" the boss seeming satisfied with the answer asks "well then Ash how would you like to be the newest member of night raid?" as she holds out her hand "You'll kill me if I refuse from what I understand" "we wouldn't kill you. But we wouldn't let you leave either, you'd have to remain here and work in our factory, either way we won't take your life but I do encourage you to join, your choice" there's a pause before Ash replies "I was only in the capital because I'm searching for answers, but it appears I was searching in the wrong place." Akame pipes up "what answers were you searching for?" the figure looks at her before answering "I already found it."

All of them look at Ash confused with his answer with Akame being the only one not showing any emotion but Ash could tell she was just as confused as the others and the first to speak up was the boss "why did you think you would find your answers in the capital?" Ash replies "this was the nearest city that's why. But it's clear that working for them is a bad idea" "so you intended to help them?" Ash replies "I intended to help the good, not the corrupt or evil… I'd rather die than help them" "than I guess Night Raids the perfect fit for you if that's the case" Ash looks at her "sorry but eliminating a few bad eggs here and there doesn't help" "you are correct but it's still the perfect fit for you!" Ash looks at her inquisitively "explain" "there's an anti-empire group called the revolutionary army that has a hideout to the south of the capital" 'a full army or just a small group?' "They started out small, but they've grown into a rather formidable organization they needed a separate unit to specialize in covert operations, such as recon and assassinating targets thus we became Night Raid" she pauses "we're only putting out one fire at a time right now but when the revolutionary army decides to make its move, amidst the chaos we'll head straight for the cause of this mess, the minister!" "So you're going to kill him?"

She looks at Ash "only then will our nation truly see change" 'you mean your nation' "so you think by killing the minister the people will truly be free and happy." She replies "I'm certain" "heh I like that idea it's as if you're fighting on the side of justice" then out of nowhere everyone starts laughing "huh? Why are you all laughing" Leone is the only one to talk "oh Ash no matter what you think, we're still murderers" Sheele pipes in "and there's no justice in the way we do things" Bulat joins as well "at any given moment every one of us could be forced to atone for the blood we've spilled" Mine chips in too "maaan he has no idea, it'll be a thousand years before he can handle it" Mine starts walking off "wait… I'll" Ash still needing a purpose decides to join "Every team member fights for a different reason, but each bears a strong resolve. Are you prepared to risk your life?" Ash can't help but snicker at the question "heh, once I find my purpose it'll be harder to find something I wouldn't risk my life for!" 'Besides there's something I have to do first' Mine looks at Ash "you know there's no glory in this work right?" "Don't worry about it I don't seek glory" the boss starts speaking "works for me. Prepare yourself for a life unlike any other. Welcome to Night Raid, you're dismissed for the night!" she then looks at Akame "Akame you're in charge of training him, if he becomes a nuisance feel free to kill him" "mhm, no problem" 'well that took a one eighty' Leone places her hand on his shoulder "you better do a good job if you wanna live" she says while smirking Ash looks at Akame 'at least I'll be able to learn something from her.'

Ash is making food as he remembers what his friends told him before he died and started to forget "you really should learn how to cook it could help save your life, and besides no one else knows how to" that's about all he could remember of his compatriots (that they were selfish assholes) 'thanks for getting me to learn how to cook you selfish pricks' "I SAID I WANT SECONDS!" "Oh yeah, me too!" Mine and Bulat "I'll take some" "oh yes if you don't mind" as well as Sheele and Lubbock 'they're asking for too much.' A half hour later in the kitchen "I thought I was going to learn how to fight not how to cook" "don't look at me I just put food on the plate m'kay" he realizes why "they didn't let you cook cause you ate the food didn't they" "I don't know what you mean" he sighs "you're a terrible liar" just then Mine and the others walk in to the kitchen "aw your right at home in the kitchen aren't you rookie!" "I'm not sure if I should be angry or annoyed at that remark and also where are all of you going? I can only assume it's a mission" Bulat replies "this one's a special request" "in that case should I come?" Mine as energetic as she is says "YOU stay here in the kitchen, now be a good cook and chop a few cucumbers for meee" 'I reeaally want to slit her throat right now.'

The next day Ash and Akame were walking through a forest, carrying baskets, they were walking for a while. And when they reached the end of the forest, Ash sees a waterfall with a lake underneath, something he hadn't seen for a long time since he began his journey in the cemetery of ash "wow… this is impressive" behind him Akame was removing her tie "today we'll start by catching some fish" and as Ash looks back Akame takes off her shirt forcing Ash to look away when she did so and after she dropped her skirt she asks "what seems to be the problem?" He looks back to see her wearing a swimsuit "nothing just a force of habit" 'oh thank the gods she's wearing a swimsuit' Akame starts heading towards the lake "our target is Koga tuna, see how many you can get" 'I've never heard of any fish that has a name like that, wonder what it tastes like?'

Akame the leaps off of the ledge before doing a front flip and transitioning into a dive. Ash waits a couple of seconds before seeing a few fish fly from the water into Akame's basket, before seeing Akame rise to the surface of the water, before giving an explanation of what to do "first you have to swim all the way down to the bottom, then conceal your aura and make your attack, you have to act very quickly." Before adding "give it a try" he replies "I'll see what I can do" before removing the gambeson and arming doublet he wore on the way and jumped in feet first, Akame just noticed the scars on his chest and arms, when he landed in the water she decided to ask him about it later and before long he threw a fish the size of a small shark as well as a slightly smaller one into his basket on the cliff.

They returned to the base and started cooking up the fish before serving it to the boss and Leone "so in the end Ash managed to catch two bull fish" "and judging from what Akame said you didn't think you'd catch any did you?" Ash nodded "yeah I don't like being cocky or over eager" Akame looks at the head of one of the fish's heads before saying "this will take some time" 'that's something I can agree with' Ash thought.

This the boss spoke up "anyway Leone, what did you find out" Ash looks at the two "here's the deal our targets are, Ogre of the imperial guard and Gamal the oil merchant, and according to the client Ogre has been accepting bribes from Gamal so that whenever he manages to get himself into trouble Ogre finds a way to pin it on someone else, her fiancé fell victim to one of those bribes and was sentenced to death" "what about the payment?" Leone pulls a bag from under the table "here it is, she payed it all up front" Ash chipped in "it's surprising that she managed to get as much as she did" Leone looked slightly more Grim while gripping her arm tightly "she smelled sickly… I think she's been selling her body" 'that's fucked… but considering the world I was in before that's tame' the boss asks "sure she's not lying" Leone replies "my senses have never steered me wrong yet boss, he's guilty"

The boss lights a stick of tobacco before saying "then Night Raid accepts this assignment, the new nation we wish to create has no room for this trash, he needs divine punishment" 'if I'm the one doing that, what she said couldn't be truer.' Leone chips in "we shouldn't have too much trouble with the oil merchant, but I betcha Ogre will be a pain in the ass." This catches Ash's attention "Ogre is a demon. His very skilled with a sword even the hitmen are scared of him and he's always surrounded by a huge crowd of subordinates. He's NEVER seen alone, he's so careful that Gamal delivers all payments to his personal chambers, but on his days off he goes drinking on Main Street, right by the palace." Ash states "it seems we have an opportune moment to strike" "but that place is heavily guarded we can't send Akame they already know what she looks like" the boss says, before Leone pipes up while raising her hand "hellooo, they don't have any wanted posters of me yet" the boss looks at her "can you do it?" as Leone places her hand on her arm she states "targets like these pukes are the ones I live for" Akame steps in "I think we should wait until the others arrive" "but we don't know if they'll be back in time correct?" Ash states as Akame confirms "mhm"

Ash places both hands on the table "then I say we complete it as soon as possible regardless of the consequences" the boss looks at him "so you think you'll be able to kill Ogre yourself?" Ash looks back "provided I have the right counters to his fighting style, yeah" Akame turns and closes her eyes "as you are now you can't do it" Ash looks at Akame "you don't know what I'm capable of" she turns back "what I mean is that you can't kill people" Ash look's down remembering all of the hollows undead and friends that he killed "I've killed more people than you know Akame so don't assume I can't kill people when you haven't even seen what I've done. And besides I don't intend to stand idly by while another innocent person gets executed. I've seen enough of my friends die to know how it feels to lose everything… including your brother." The boss extinguishes the stick before saying "then it's settled. I admire your conviction Ash, take him down"

Leone hits Ash in the back of the head saying "now that's what I-" she is immediately cut off as her hand gets grabbed by Ash as he flips her over him throwing her on to the ground "I said don't sneak up on me" the boss tells Akame and Leone "I'd like you two ladies to focus on the oil merchant." "You got it" Leone says when she gets up out of the grip "understood" Akame says as she gets up from the table "I will kill him Akame" 'that much I can promise' she replies with "I'll withhold judgement on your ability until you complete the mission and report back" he thought he could hear a hint of worry in her voice as she said that, before turning to look at Ash "if you start off with overconfidence and arrogance. You'll die" 'I know… It's happened to me before' she walks out of the room 'I will return alive that much I can promise'

A few hours later Ash and Leone arrive at a street presumably main street, Leone confirms that by saying "this is Main Street" before adding "did you memorize the map like I told you" "yeah I memorized it" 'kind of hard not to, when the place I was in before never allowed me the pleasure of having one' Leone couldn't tell what he was thinking as she couldn't see his face through the mask and hood, but she thought he was thinking of what Akame said to him "Ash, I think I should tell you a few things about Akame's past" this catches his attention "when she was a kid, she and her sister were sold to the empire" he looks down "they were placed in an assassin training camp with other abandoned kids, there she learnt how to survive the harsh surroundings as well as the art of murder" he clenches his fist in anger "she grew up an assassin blindly doing the empires dirty work, and as Akame got older she started to see the darkness the empire was hiding" 'like when me and my brother when we were sold to the order' "one day she was sent to kill… the boss. But it didn't happen, somehow she convinced her to join the revolutionary army, and join the side of the people but by the time she could do it, most of the kids she grew up with were already dead. Do you see what I'm getting at Ash?" "Yes I do your saying there are things I don't understand yet, and as such should hold judgement until I get the full picture" Leone turns with a smirk "well… if you manage to live through today, then you'll learn a little more" 'I doubt there'll be much more to learn after today.'

In a structure similar to a palace a fat man, whose face looked like a frog, was walking down a corridor after going to the toilet "woo, that bathroom will never be the same. Anyway, time to get back to living the dream" then from behind a pair of hands similar to paws come from behind "wait a second!" Leone's hands wrap around his neck "I've got a better idea!" as she says this Akame plunges her sword into his chest, penetrating the heart "killed by two hot babes! You lucky dog." After Leone says this Akame removes her sword as Leone lets go, letting him collapse on to the ground "now then I wonder how the noobs doing with his part of the job." Akame simply stays silent 'I hope Ash doesn't die.'

Back in Main Street, Ash waits for the target planning out how to confront him before settling on one. Soon after, he notices Ogre leaving the bar while saying something to himself, Ash proceeds with his plan by approaching him 'time or the hard part' "excuse me Master Ogre" he turns "uh huh?" 'I really hate acting' "I have a matter of utmost importance to discuss with you." "That so? Let's hear it." Ash looks side to side to help with the act "we need to speak privately" "huh?" after a little while they find themselves in an alleyway after a few seconds Ash notices Ogre move his eye left and right figuring he might be suspicious "alright start talking, I wanna get home" "of course" 'please not let this be for nothing I don't want to live with the embarrassment what I'm doing if I fail' Ash then turns to face Ogre and then clenches his fist and turns before saying "you killed a few people haven't you?" this catches Ogre off guard.

"Yeah, what of it?" Ash places a hand on the hilt of the chaos blade "tell me how many of those people were framed, and how many were guilty" "what's it to you." Ash notices him place a hand on the hilt of his sword as he looks at him, before stating "none of them were guilty were they? I have a feeling that they were innocent, and that it's time you got your PUNISHMENT!" before cutting Ogres abdomen open with the blade causing profuse bleeding "NEVER underestimate your opponent." As Ash turns and walks away, Ogre gets up behind him and strikes but is too slow as Ash notices in time to pull the scabbard up to block the attack blowing him back a couple of meters because of the amount of force behind the attack. And Ogre doesn't give him time to recover launching a flurry of attacks on him all while saying "DID YOU REALLY THINK YOU COULD SLAY THE MIGHTY OGRE, A PATHETIC LITTLE SNOT NOSED BRAT LIKE YOOUU!"

After he finished with the last attack as he finished what he was saying he sent Ash flying into a wall "ok so let me guess you're one of those Night Raid punks that go around killing the people in power right?" Ash proceeds to get up "yeah pretty much" "WELL THE WEAK CAN SQUEEL ALL THEY WANT BUT THE STRONG WILL ALWAYS RULE IN THIS EMPIRE BOY" he then looks at Ash more sinisterly "WHO YOU DEEM WORTHY MEANS NOTHING, I JUDGE THE FATE OF THE PEOPLE" after saying this Ash slices Ogres wrist open before leaping off of Ogres sword as it was going for a horizontal swing at Ash, allowing him to gain momentum as he came back down to the planet only to be blocked, after he rolls forward taking the scabbard off of his belt in time for him to block Ogres next attack while taking note of the amount of blood Ogre spilt

"Tell me on whose order did you come here boy? The fiancée of the little worm I had executed?" Ash remains silent waiting for the right moment to kill him "I guess I was right! I told myself I should've knocked off that wench when I had the chance. Well I still could if I wanted to. First I'll chase that bitch down find everyone she knows and bring 'em up on charges and take my time torturing them to death while she watches BUT NOT UNTIL I KILL YOU FIRST!" he manages to break Ash's guard getting a strike into his left shoulder missing the flesh and hitting the metal plates, denting them. But in doing so was a fatal mistake as Ash cuts off his right arm with the chaos blade before switching to the frayed blade and uses it's weapon art to slice him multiple times allowing there to be more wounds to speed up the bleeding process, forcing Ogre to pass out before saying "you should pay more attention to your wounds buddy. If you did you might not have died." After saying this he pulls out the chaos blade, and proceeds to slit Ogres throat before heading back to base while covering up his shoulder with the cloak he was wearing after sprinkling a golden powder over it. 'I was too cocky back there.'

Back at base Ash reports his success to the boss "so you've defeated a powerful adversary on your own? I'm impressed" "it wasn't really that impressive, after all my armour didn't exactly get off without a scratch" after hearing this Akame springs into action removing Ash's cloak and revealing a dent in the shoulder plates in the left arm in his left shoulder, after seeing this she tells the boss and Leone to keep him still as she removes his leather armour and starts examining his body all over after a while she says "thank goodness!" this surprises Ash as he wasn't expecting her to say that "I've seen people die from infection because they were too proud to report their wounds, but it's good that you weren't, it's hard for most people to survive past their first mission, I'm glad you survived" Ash feels guilty for making her worry 'I guess that's the reason she was so hard on me'

The boss pipes up "cooking helped with communication and the hunting would've taught you basic killing techniques, though the hunting was apparently unnecessary as Akame told us you already seemed to have those basic techniques" 'that explains it' "sorry I got hurt Akame, I got a bit too cocky during the fight" he feels a bit more guilty "just keep coming back alive, Ash" "I'll try to, Akame" Leone snickers in the background "oh my god this is so adorable, and cheesy. And the fact that your-" a small knife fly's by her head into the wall behind her "don't" after saying that Ash looks at her menacingly the boss pipes up "well you'll be working with Mine on your next assignment, so I expect your best" Leone goes over to Ash "yowch out of the frying pan and into the fire" 'oh fuck me.'

 ** _END OF CHAPTER 2: INCINERATE THE CORRUPTION_**


	3. Chapter 3

_**CHAPTER 3: INCINERATE THE CORRUPTION**_

It was in the middle of the day when Lubbock felt there was a disturbance. After everyone was filled in they were sent into the forest to intercept the intruders, once they were a fair distance into the forest everyone split up into groups or individually, with Bulat sticking with Ash as they ran "you're still a little new to be going up against a group like this" Ash replies "we'll see who's new to this" Bulat looks over at Ash with a smirk "oh is that a challenge" "what do you think?" he understands and decides to show off "HEY check this out!" he takes a deep breath before shouting "INCURSIO!" Bulat is immediately showered in light with a creature appearing behind him before he becomes covered in armour and strikes a pose "impressive" Ash says as he applauds him "this is the imperial arms: Incursio" "imperial arms?" that confuses Ash but doesn't think much about that instead he notices a few souls moving around, and it seems that Bulat noticed as well "it's them, I guess it's time to go to work" Ash draws the Chaos Blade in preparation of the fight to come.

After a couple of minutes of nonstop souls they see their first piece of action when one of the opponents attempted to back stab Ash only to be met with a blade through their sternum, the others then started to attack Bulat with a few trying to attack Ash with one trying to take him straight on and another trying to strike from behind only for him to spin around with a massive halberd twice as large as him slicing both of them in two and a third opponent makes an attack from above to be met with a great sword thrown into his abdomen temporarily stopping the attackers momentum before he fell on the swords hilt forcing the blade further through his abdomen and straight through his spine that seemed to be the last of Ash's opponents he then turns to see how Bulat was doing and saw that Bulat's opponents were circling him before leaping into the air hoping to surprise him only for them to be sliced open with his spear 'impressive, I shouldn't underestimate him.'

Soon after, everyone reconvened at the entrance to the forest "you still alive, Ash?" "I think that's obvious" then the last attacker ambushes them trying to kill Ash, Akame rushes forward pushing Ash out of the way as her arm almost gets cut by the attacker. Only for the attacker to lose his head, as Ash was apparently waiting for him to attack. "That was unnecessary but thanks."

At night Ash was trying to think back on the past, to remember who his compatriots were. The only one he remembers though was his brother, Blaze '*sigh* he was one hell of a pain in the ass back then. But he was a useful meat shield when we were trying to take down Aldrich' while Ash was remembering the amount of times Blaze died to those ridiculous looking arrows. He decided to go to sleep only to be met with an image of Akame in his head 'why am I thinking of her at a time like this? *sigh* I wonder how Orbeck would've felt about this place; I know Greirat would love the situation I'm in. He'd get to help people, something he's good at. I think it's best to get to sleep now.'

The next morning Ash was waiting by the door to the meeting room 'why is she taking so long? For someone who's supposed to be an assassin, she is extremely lax' soon after Sheele comes by asking "is something the matter" "huh? Oh hey Sheele. I'm supposed to be training with Mine today, but she hasn't come out of her room." Sheele replies "well she does have a habit of sleeping in." "*sigh* of course, it's what I should expect from someone like her" as she opens the door to the meeting room she says "I'm so sorry for the inconvenience, I'll go wake her up" as she turns to leave the boss says "wait. Let Ash do it." Ash looks at her confused "why's that?" "Because you're her subordinate for today, waking up your supervisor is part of an assassin's job." Ash feels a slight bit of anger because of that. "*sigh* fine, you better hope she doesn't kill me though." as he leaves Sheele states "I wasn't aware we had that rule." The boss giggles a bit "consider it another test"

A few minutes later Ash is standing at Mine's door and opens it "hey Mine, are you going to sleep all day or do I-" when he opens the door, he sees Mine getting dressed and almost immediately she shoots at him with an incredible amount of strength that would've killed him, if it weren't for the two giant doors in front of him as he shouts "WHAT DID I DO WRONG!" Mine yells back "YOU KNOW PERFECTLY WELL WHAT YOU DID WRONG! AND HOW DARE YOU BLOCK THAT ATTACK WHEN YOU KNOW YOU DESERVE TO DIE" 'if she doesn't calm down I'm going to die' "if you didn't sleep in so late, I wouldn't have been sent to get you" Mine grumbles "Maybe so but have you ever heard of a thing called KNOCKING!" before sending another energy blast his way (and this continues for some time) back in the meeting room the boss and Sheele were sitting at a table while the blasts were going on, Leone soon arrives "Hey! Is there some kind of festival going on!" she says while flailing her hands in the air. Sheele says "she really seems to be going all out" before the boss says "he'll be in for a long day"

A few hours later they were in the capital at one of the streets 'this reminds me of the undead settlement below Lothric, before everyone went hollow and died' his train of thought was immediately stopped by Mine as she shouted "Hey, pervert hurry up! What's the holdup soldier boy? Move it chop-chop. Aren't you supposed to be my faithful servant for the day" "servant?" this confuses him "yeah that's what the boss said." Ash feels slightly infuriated "No she said I was training under you." "Yeah and the operative word is under" Ash sighs knowing that it won't get anywhere if they keep arguing.

"Uhm… Mine?" she replies "what?" "Why do these people seem so unhappy" she replies with "they live in fear of the government, AND the economy sucks. Most everyone's either at rock bottom or on their way down. You wouldn't be that chipper either" after a few meters Mine and Ash hear what sounds like bullying to their left, when they turn they see two guys bullying a girl much younger than themselves. Infuriating Ash "hey what do you two think you're do-" Ash is cut off by Mine who says "shouldn't you two jerks be picking on someone your own size!" they turn dropping the girl in the process the fat one says "you gonna do something about it" the second pitches in "its fine this little girl's a refugee from outside the country. I mean she could turn out to be a traitor any second" "so could I" she replies clearly angry. This catches the both of them off-guard before she says "Ash!" "Understood" in less than a second he slices off their belts with the Uchigatana causing their pants to fall to the ground. Scaring and embarrassing them, making them run away in fear. The girl stands and turns to say "Uhm… thank you, for saving me" mine turns her head "don't thank me!" this startles the girl "just grow up strong so you can protect yourself. Okay?" Mine then walks off, Ash turns back and hands her a couple of coins "buy some clothes or food with this understood?" the little girl nods before Ash heads after Mine.

After a few meters, Ash asks "I assume its ok for us to be outside, right?" Mine replies "why wouldn't it be? They only managed to identify four of us so far" 'that makes sense' Ash's attention is then drawn to Bulat's poster and decided to ask a question that's been on his mind for a while. "Quick question, why does Bulat look so different compared to his poster" she answers "simple, that picture was taken from back in his army days. He changed his look when he joined Night Raid" he ponders this for a few seconds 'I guess that makes sense' "anyway the boss gave this mission to you and me BECAUSE we can walk around freely" Ash turns back "I figured that was the reason" Mine then sends one hand into the air while saying "GOOD, now it's time for our retail investigation!" "Retail investigation?" for the next few hours they started going to various shops around the city, with mine purchasing various items from them, while having Ash carrying everything.

During their investigation they decide to have a break for some tea "ah, what a day. Nothing makes me happier than a brand new pink dress." 'You've got to be kidding me' she continues "isn't it wonderful to have a whole day to goof off." 'You've got a point, I can't remember the last time I had fun, or goofed around.' She takes a sip of her tea before adding "well, the mission's complete" "all we did was shop all day!" this earns him a punch in the face resulting in the complete destruction of his infinite poise knocking him to the floor. And in seconds Mine is standing above him, arms crossed "have you already forgotten that I am above you! Good servants don't question their masters." She then starts kicking him "you should be grateful I deemed you worthy to carry my bags!" Ash quickly gets up not wanting to lose his pride (or his poise) "I'd really like it if you didn't bruise me up before my next lot of training. And also nothing we did (as far as I know) counts as training!" "What? You really think you can waltz in here and be on my level?" 'Of course I don't!' she turns away from Ash "you do seem pretty confident in your skills as a swordsman." 'Also as a halberdier, axeman, horseman, spearman, thief, assassin, sorcerer, pyromancer, cleric, and knight' Ash thought before Mine continued "but you haven't seen nearly as much combat as me." 'WHAT!' "I think I get what you're saying." Mine turns to face him "that I'm new and there are things I won't get about this job. But you're wrong about the amount of combat I've seen, I've seen plenty of wars that have occurred, and lost my comrades in many of them, and I intend to stop that from happening" this surprises Mine but she doesn't show it "Akame and Bulat have high hopes for you, but I have my doubts" 'it's only natural for her to have doubts, after all she knows what happens to people who don't know how to fight.'

A second later Ash noticed that people were heading a random direction "what's going on over there?" Mine casually replies with "it's an execution. They're pretty common here." After a minute of walking, they end up at the execution grounds, where Ash finds the worst execution he has ever seen in his life and death. There were five people, each strapped to upright crosses with arrows protruding from the flesh of each of them, and they were groaning and crying in pain some had tears streaming down their face. "Why would anyone do this?" Mine answers with a sullen look on her face "it's the minister who supports this kind of cruelty; ultimately he put the child emperor on the throne so that he could be in control. As for me, I'll never end up like this; I am going to survive this hell no matter what happens." Ash turns to face Mine 'well if you do end up like this and rescue is impossible, I'll ease your suffering.' He then flicks his fingers and kills the five, by incinerating their brains, making it as painless as possible.

After doing this the guards and the people think they went unconscious, only to find that they were dead, allowing Mine and Ash to walk away, without drawing any attention to themselves.

Once back at base in the meeting room, everyone is given new instructions for their next mission "Night Raid has a new mission. This time our target is a distant relative of minister Honest, Eokal. He's been using the minister's name, so he can kidnap innocent women and beat them to death. Eokal also has five mercenary guards, they're equally guilty. I'm counting on you guys, now go take him out!" After all of them arrive at the designated area; they go over the strategy before going into action. Ash and Mine stand guard with Ash being the spotter. 'So that's his mansion. It's smaller than the old castle I used to be stationed at' the building resembled an old eastern castle that lacked any and all defence applications; it even lacked a gate, which would make it easy for any invaders to attack. After studying its structure Ash asked Mine "so your weapon, that's an imperial arms that you lot keep talking about right?" she replies "Yep! Its name is Pumpkin. It gets more deadly the more danger I find myself in" 'that would've been handy back at Lothric.' Mine continues "but a girl like me is hardly ever IN any real danger." "How did anyone figure out how to make it?" she quickly faces Ash "nobody MAKES imperial arms, stupid. Geez they're ancient legendary weapons (I'm amazed by the things you don't know)" 'I guess the Coiled Sword, Moonlight Great Sword, Storm Ruler and the Chaos blade count if that's the case.'

Mine proceeds to take aim "I don't need a risk factor this far away, I'll shoot him as soon as he sets foot outside." Ash has the Dragonslayer Greatbow propped up against a nearby tree for quick use "and after you kill him it's my job to get you back to the rendezvous point." After hearing what Ash said, Mine smirks before saying "heh! I'll keep my expectations low." She then takes aim, taking deep breaths, and then placing her finger on the trigger of her weapon looking on in determination 'she really doesn't want to miss this shot. Well I guess I should be ready to fire just in case.' Ash checks his quiver to make sure he has the appropriate arrows for the situation. "Here he comes." Ash pulls up the binoculars to find out where he is, to see that he was at the front gate surrounded by women 'how stupid is this guy?' "I see him, but the others aren't on our hit list." not averting her eyes from the target, Mine says "that's fine." This puzzles Ash for a second before it dawns on him what she meant "provided you don't miss, I'm fine with how you handle it." As soon as he said this, Mine fired, with the weapon shooting, what looked similar to lightning, through Eokal's head, killing him.

Ash looks at Mine impressed with her accuracy, she notices this and says "glad to know you're impressed with my skill" Ash then scans the forest and notices the mercenaries running through the forest "we've got some movement, let's get back to the rendezvous point." Ash then picks up the Greatbow and starts heading to the rendezvous with Mine. "How long will those guards last?" Mine answers with "those guards trained at the imperial fist temple. It may take them some time." "I assume that's a successful martial arts temple" they then arrived at a ledge, Ash boosts Mine up onto the ledge "the minister used his family's influence to get ahead, I hate that more than anything" 'I guess there's a reason behind her hate' almost immediately she says "I feel like being nice to you right now, so I'll tell you the reason behind that" 'they're just full of exposition aren't they.' She continues "I was born into one of the western tribes on the border that means half my blood is foreign. The villagers treated me terribly because of it and no one showed me an ounce of respect, my childhood was a nightmare. But the revolutionary army formed an alliance with the western tribe. So if we do end up having a new nation, people will stop caring about our differences. And no more kids will have to go through what I did growing up. I will not allow anybody else, to ever suffer such intolerance" 'that explains why she's so bitter' she then turns to face Ash with a goofy smile on her face "not to mention, after everything I've accomplished in the name of revolution, I'll get loads of reward money and grow old in the lap of luxury!" she then starts laughing pompously 'you're really making it hard for me to sympathize with you

Back at with the rest of the team, Leone just finished off the last of the four guards "oh man that felt so incredible!" Sheele says "that was a rather pleasant challenge wasn't it." Akame pipes up "something's not right. I thought the boss said there was supposed to be five." Lubbock proceeds to complain "oh man, I didn't get to kill anybody! So I guess there's one left." Leone looks over to him with a sly look "too bad Lub, I'm docking your pay." "WHYY!" while this is happening Akame thinks about where the fifth could've gone arriving on one conclusion 'Ash'

Ash and Mine arrive at a pink blossom tree a few minutes later. "This is the rendezvous point; I guess that means we're all done." "Only once we report in" Mine smirks "you sound like Akame" Ash notices some rustling and turns to see someone attempting to attack Mine. And in less than a second, he pushes her out of the way, crossing his arms and planting his feat, blocking the punch from the opponent, but gets pushed right into the tree. Mine looks over at Ash and then the attacker, and asks "who are you?" "I must say I've outdone myself." Mine then realizes who he is "you're a fighter from the temple aren't you!" "I am, assistant instructor to be exact, 'course that was ten years ago" Mine then proceeds to insult him "and look at you now. Protecting a nobody. Oh my how the mighty have fallen." She then starts firing, only for him to dodge every shot while saying "let's just say I stirred up some trouble" before jumping up into the air "TIME TO SAY YOUR PRAYERS LITTLE GIRL! YOU'RE GOING STRAIGHT TO THE MINISTER!" Mine jumps back saying "that's not gonna happen!"

Behind him Ash gets up and swings the top of the Greatbow at him, only to be blocked by the fighter's hands. But Ash only needed it for a distraction as he immediately let's go and kicks him in the leg, stunning him allowing Ash to back away allowing him to get into his stance. The fighter then attack Ash, only for his punch to get parried he then gets punched in the gut and then pushed to the ground before Ash flattens his hand and plunges it into his chest and wrapping it around his heart "gauge your opponent's strength before fighting them… dumbass" and with that he crushes and incinerates the heart. Ash then gets up and takes out a golden flask and takes a sip of what was in it. Mine was surprised but not visibly "I guess I have to commend you for taking him down" he proceeds to ignore her "you could've helped, but whatever" a few meters away the rest of the team was watching everything that happened "I guess we didn't need to rush over here did we" 'no you didn't' Ash turned and noticed that Akame was smiling. 'That's the second time she's smiled… guess I shouldn't screw up if that's the case.'

 _ **END OF CHAPTER 3: INCINERATE THE INCONVENIANCE**_


	4. Chapter 4

**_CHAPTER 4: INCINERATE THE EXECUTIONER_**

Out in the practice field, Ash was testing out some new techniques using one of the practice swords, because of the curvature and weight of the blade. The most he was able to do was perform three spins followed by a leap into the air while spinning with the sword extended outwards in one hand before colliding with the ground. "I see you're trying to perfect your technique with a sword. Am I correct?" it was Bulat, he came for his own training and wasn't expecting Ash to be there "pretty much, but my form's all over the place during the transition between the attacks" Bulat decides to give Ash a few tips for that "well if you cut out the extra movement, you can keep your form and hold up twice as long. Also if you ditched the heavy armour, you might use up less stamina and get used to the motions" "I think I get what you're saying." Ash then removes the black iron armour he was wearing and drops it to the floor, leaving only the gambeson and the leggings. "Why do you wear such heavy armour, Ash?" he replies "to get used to the weight, so I can use heavier weapons" Bulat looks at him expectantly before Akame interrupts "Ash" he looks over at Akame "it's time for you to help me make breakfast"

In the kitchen Ash asks "what are we making for today." She turns back while holding up a potato "its croquettes and rice." 'Never heard of that before, wonder what it tastes like.' A few minutes later, after eating the croquettes and rice, everyone was full. "Oh man, that hit the spot!" Leone said Ash followed up "that was surprisingly filling." Ash then noticed two bowls were still full "Mine and Sheele still haven't gotten out of bed yet have they" Akame replies "yeah they always sleep this late." Before taking one of the bowls and devouring its contents, before grappling the next bowl and consuming it just as fast, before wiping her face with a napkin. Leaving Leone and Ash dumbstruck "w-what just happened?" Akame quickly stands up "Ash, we'll be serving tuna and rice for lunch" Sheele walked in behind her seconds later "Akame behind you" Sheele notices her bowl is empty "hm, what happened to my breakfast"

Later at night they receive their next target "your next target is the serial killer everyone's been talking about, he appears at night and decapitates people, seemingly at random. Right now the number of victims is unknown." Ash pitches in "a third of those people were guards from what I understand, he must be tough." "No doubt about it definitely sounds like head-hunter Zanku's work." Lubbock says "who's that?" Mine looks over at Ash "you don't know? Wow, you really aren't from around here are you?" 'What do you expect I'm from a different world. Sheele then raises her hand and says "sorry but I don't think I've heard of him either." Ash looks at Sheele and states "You're an airhead, so you would either forget or not pay attention, if he was mentioned." He then faces forward saying "now what's so bad about him" Mine then starts talking "it's worse than you can imagine" 'is it worse than having to kill your own friend?' "Head-hunter Zanku used to be the executioner for the biggest prison in the empire, the minister orders a lot of decapitations. Over and over, day in and day out, and one by one, Zanku chopped off their heads as they begged for their lives. Over the years it became an addiction, and now he can't stop."

"That would drive anyone crazy wouldn't it?" Ash said, Mine replied "uh-huh, and eventually killing prisoners wasn't enough so he took it to the streets" Bulat pitched in "Zanku disappeared shortly after a subjugation force was organized to capture him (I never thought he would turn up in the city)" Ash then says "then what are we doing here? We need to take him out as soon as possible!" Bulat then places his hand on ashes head "easy tiger" "please don't touch me." Bulat continues "Zanku's also equipped with an imperial arms he stole from the warden a few years back, we'd better travel in teams of two (in ca-)" he is then cut off by Ash saying "I get Akame!" Mine ignores this and asks the boss "by the way, do we have any idea which imperial arms he might be fighting with?" the boss replies no we're still looking into that" Leone seems serious "not about to reveal his hand then is he, that's annoying."

Ash then asks a question that's been on his mind since anyone mentioned imperial arms to him "excuse me but what are imperial arms anywa-" he is then interrupted by Akame, by her pulling out her blade and bringing it down next to Ash as she then says "something like this." "Just showing me a weapon, and not explaining what it is, doesn't help." Ash says while looking at Akame. The boss pipes up "very well then, why don't we bring him up to speed." 'Finally, some answers.' "A thousand years ago, the emperor who built the great empire was deeply troubled. He gathered materials from S-class danger beasts, and rare metals, such as orichalcum. Artisans from around the world were summoned to help him. The emperor's wealth and power allowed him to create forty eight weapons, a feat that would be impossible today." 'I made thirty four weapons through soul transposition.' "He called them the imperial arms. Each one was equipped with amazing abilities, and some are able to wipe out entire armies. Ministers who used the imperial arms were quite successful on the battle field. But a large civil war, five hundred years ago, caused half of the weapons to be scattered across the land. And that's how it all began."

Ash then looks at Akame's blade "I assume her sword is one of those forty eight, right?" Akame nods before the boss says "the one hit killer Murasame. When someone is cut by this sword a poisonous curse enters the body and kills within seconds. There is no antidote." She then moves on to Leone's imperial arms "hundred beast, king transformation Lionelle. This belt gives the wearer all the strength and swiftness of a wild animal. It also enhances the sense of smell, making it perfect for recon." Then Mine's "the adventurous bunker pumpkin. A gun that fires mental energy in the form of a shockwave, the more danger its wielder is in the more deadly it becomes." then Bulat "the demon armour, Incursio." 'Geez are all introductions gonna be like this?' "A suit of armour with impregnable defence, wearing it will cause such great strain that any normal person who attempts to put it on will die" then Lubbock "the Prodian Cross Tail, a string based imperial arms that can be used to set traps and barriers, as well as attack enemies directly, it's just as versatile and deadly as the name suggests." And finally Sheele. "The shears of creation Extase, a giant pair of scissors, sharp enough to cut anything in half, they are also strong enough to be used defensively." 'Glad that's over with.' the boss continues on "some imperial arms also have trump cards. Incursio maximises the abilities of the beast used to create it, allowing its user to become temporarily invisible. Most importantly, the imperial arms have followed one ironclad rule from time and morial, these weapons are so incredible that whenever two of them clash, it always ends in death therefore if two imperial arms users choose to fight, one of them will definitely perish" 'like when you participate in a duel, the outcomes always grim.' "We know Zanku has an imperial arms, while mutual death is a possibility, mutual survival is clearly not."

Ash thinks about this for a second before Lubbock places a wire in front of his throat "uh-oh looks like we've revealed way too much to let you out of here now, so unless you wanna die I guess you're just stuck with us-" Ash slices the wire with his dagger and then proceeds to throw Lubbock halfway across the room "don't sneak up on me." Leone and the boss chuckle when he says that "well the fact you're stuck with us is a good thing, it means the boss considers you part of the team now (and nice throw by the way)." says Leone as the boss soon pipes up "while it's true that night raid is lacking in numbers, we make up for it with our individual abilities. I believe we're the heart of the revolution" Ash then asks "you don't have any of those imperial arms in storage do you?" the boss confirms with "yes, we don't have any on hand otherwise we might have given you one." The boss then gets up from her chair and says "nothing further at this time, now let's go punish this scumbag. Move out!" "Understood."

Everyone was then split into groups, with Akame and Ash investigating one of the streets. After arrival, Akame confirms the area they're in "this is the area where we are supposed to be checking out." Ash looks around and notices no one outside of their houses. "Everybody's scared enough that nobody's outside. That-" Akame places a hand over Ash's mouth and drags him into an opening of one of the walls as guards run by, Akame then says "keep an eye out for guards" while keeping a hand over Ash's mouth as he nods. They then step out into the street and walk for a few meters Ash then asks a question "hey Akame can I ask you something?" Akame assumes his question is about food and says "not to worry, I made sure to bring enough food for both of us." "No it's not that, I just wanted to confirm that your sword can actually kill in one hit." said Ash Akame confirms "that's right." 'Thank the gods for armour.' "I've been using Murasame for a very long time. And over the past few years, it's built a reputation as the one hit kill sword" Ash tells her "it would help if it was a secret but eh screw it, it's invincible regardless" Akame refutes that by saying "no it still has some drawbacks" 'like?' "It's almost impossible to clean, if I cut my finger I'm dead" Ash mutters "like my chaos blade" while looking at his own blade while Akame continues "I must cut directly into my opponents flesh. Or the curse won't get into the body." 'Must be hard for her, when she's facing an opponent who has tough armour.' "For me everything depends on one hit kills, that's why I can't just rely on my imperial arms" 'she's around my age, and it seems like she's seen her fair share of battles… I hope she hasn't had to fight in a war like I have' Akame turns and starts off but as she turns Ash notices a small circle just under her hair but is soon covered up

About a hundred meters away, on top of a building, sits a figure with a metal eye on his forehead "hmm now we have some assassins and a serial killer running loose in the capital. My what a jungle this city can be, how exciting." He then looks at the other members while saying "good evening Night Raid, I wonder which head I should go after first?" before settling on Ash and notices his eyes the colours of water and death "whoa look at the sense of purpose in those eyes, I'm impressed" he then clicks his fingers before saying "I know what I'll do, I'll go after the tastiest morsels first."

Back with Ash and Akame, they are having a drink and a snack. "I wonder how long this mission will take." Says Ash as he was sipping his drink. And over in an alley he noticed orange sign on the ground 'what?' "I'll be right back" he says standing up from the bench they were sitting on. Akame misinterprets what he says and assumes "is nature calling?" 'Why does she immediately think of that?" Ash heads over to where he saw the sign, and sure enough it's a message from another player saying 'beware of gutter.' Ash can't help but smile at what it said 'you really must hate gutters if you left this here.' Ash then notices a shadow at his feet, he then looks over at where the shadow was originating from to see "Akame?" she then takes off and Ash soon follows suit.

A minute later he finds himself in an open area with Akame in the centre, Ash then asks "what are we doing here? This isn't where we should be." Akame smiles and then reaches out as if to hug him only for Ash to jump back sensing something was wrong, and he was right. Akame shimmers before revealing a figure with blonde hair and a trench coat "amazing, you mind telling me how you saw through my illusion?" Ash keeps silent with his hand above the blade "the silent type I see, well you mind telling me your name?" 'What's the point of knowing my name?' "So I know how to refer to you, Ash." Ash then says "you're head-hunter Zanku, aren't you?" 'How did he know that? Wait the thing on his head it's your imperial arms isn't it.' Zanku then yells out "BINGO! You're right it's called spectator, and one of its five special gifts is known as insight. It allows me to see your every thought by gazing at your facial expressions. Obviously it blessed me with keen powers of observation. Should I give you a shiny gold star for guessing right?" Ash feels confused "why would I want a gold star? And also, can you please stop talking." Zanku retorts with "OH no, I love a good chit chat! Do you know how I manage to find you?" "shut up." Ash then rushes him pulling the blade out and slashing horizontally, only for Zanku to dodge out of the way and point to his imperial arms "one problem, I'm still reading your mind like an open book, have you forgotten that!"

Ash stands his ground after placing the blade back in its sheathe, as Zanku rushes him while saying "you'll attack with the scabbard to knock me down." As Ash does exactly that "then perform the weapon art." As Ash attacks with a low strike "then you'll try to sweep my leg!" As Ash goes for a low kick only to have a deep gouge in his arm "you really are predictable." 'Damn, he's tougher than anyone I've faced so far' "I love the look on people's faces when I remove their heads, it never ceases to give me a rush, the thing that gets me most is how they always look so surprised. I wonder what kind of delightful expression you'll make" Ash then calmly says "I doubt you'll find out." Within seconds Zanku attacks only for Ash to block the attack and miss the one that cuts his arm, before Zanku launches a flurry of attacks where Ash only blocks a fifth of them with the rest either hitting his armour or his limbs before stopping. "I must say, you have quite the resolve to keep up with a portion of my attacks, as well as the will to keep going." "*sigh* you've got to be kidding me." Ash mutters to himself "doesn't seem like you expect any mercy, why is that?" "Because I never gave my opponents any, why should I expect any from you?" he notices a small white sign behind Zanku 'this'll be a pain in the ass.' Ash then sprints forward with amazing speed closing the distance in less than a second, with his blade still sheathed before drawing it and striking just as fast, grazing his arm, but losing his helmet in the process. "For someone who claims that he has enhanced perception you seemed to miss my sprint." A deep gouge then appears in his left cheek before falling to one knee next to his target location.

Zanku then rushes forward, enraged by the wound Ash caused, but stops as a katana lands in front of him. Both of them then look up to see Akame falling from an immeasurable height before landing and retrieving Murasame from the ground and getting into a stance "he seems pretty upset, you must've used your own psychological tactics." 'About time she got here.' "I'm glad I got here in time just sit tight, while I finish him off and tend to those wounds of yours." She says with a smile while facing Ash causing him to smile back at her. After this exchange Zanku chucks his over coat into the air before saying "well if it isn't Akame and her infamous Murasame." Ash interrupts "that rhymes!" Zanku ignores him and continues "how delightful, nice to meet you dear." Akame responds "so nice to meet you as well since you're my target." Ash senses a bit of hostility in her voice as she said the last part. Ash then notices Zanku's imperial arms open, and sees that it appears to be examining her. "Akame, be careful, the eyeball allows him to read your mind." She takes note of this "I see, I wondered which imperial arms he'd be using. No matter, it makes no difference whether he can read my mind or not, if he can't keep up." She says before launching herself at him. Her first attack was blocked as well as the next twenty two, before kicking him across the arena "the hell was that." Ash didn't expect to see such a quick exchange before noticing that Akame was doing something he didn't do, which was clearing her mind of all thoughts. "Well done you've cleared your mind, but spectator has foresight, I already know what your next move will be" 'you've got to be kidding me.' Akame then sprints forward with a downward slash only to be blocked by his wrist blades "Exactly!" Akame then dodges backwards as he brings his fist down shattering the ground, sending rubble flying, Ash then notices a cut on Akame's left leg Infuriating him 'That bastard!'

Zanku then looks at Akame saying "come on now it wouldn't be very fair if I didn't rough you up a little bit now, would it?" Akame ignores this and says "you can see what I'm thinking and what I'm about to do. I'd say we're even" Zanku then says "so Akame tell me how do you deal with the voices?" this confuses her "huh voices" and Ash is waiting for help as Zanku starts talking "listen, when it's quiet, you can hear them. The people I've killed are screaming at me from hell. They sound so angry, and they're constantly telling me to hurry and join them down there. I've been hearing them every day since I became an executioner, and it keeps getting worse. I keep talking to drown out the noise, so tell me what do you do about that" "I don't hear them, your voices I don't hear anything like that" Replies Akame "interesting you're such an experienced assassin I thought for sure you'd understand. YOU HAVE DISSAPOINTED ME!" Akame seems surprised or scared of whatever he showed her 'Akame' "SNAP OUT OF IT!" Zanku tells Ash that "she can't illusionary sight creates a mirage of the person you care the most about in this world. Right now she's looking at a vision of someone so important to her she can't bring herself to do harm to me." "You bastard!" Ash then stands up "I'll kill you!"

"This'll be the last thing you see before you die Akame. ENJOY IT!" Akame is then pushed out of the way by a figure dressed in black, with their face covered and their clothing looking similar to that of eastern assassins from Ash's world "am I late" Ash looks at him "by about ten minutes." The figure then says "sorry Ash it takes time for the connections." "Yeah I know Ryoma." Zanku looks infuriated at the fact he lost his kill "WHO THE HELL ARE YOU!" the figure now called Ryoma says "I'm Ryoma Sakamoto, former assassin and teacher of Londor." He then raised a bell before throwing a lightning bolt at Zanku allowing Ash to help up Akame "what the hell was that!" before allowing Zanku to recover, he rushes in drawing an illusory katana and attacking Zanku going right through his block with the illusory blade and slicing off the weapons allowing a recovered Akame to come in and finish him off. "You are done." She says as she slices his neck. Zanku then falls over onto his back as Akame walks over to Ash and Ryoma asking "Ash, are you alright?" Ash looks up at Akame smiling "I think I got a concussion, but yeah I'm fine" she then looks at Ryoma "do you mind telling me who you are?" Ryoma looks at her "an old friend of Ash."

After arriving back at base and giving their reports. Akame treats Ash's wounds, before going to bed. The next day Ash is sitting by the cliff, thinking about yesterday's events with the orange message and white summon sign, before being interrupted by Akame chucking an apron on top of him "what are you doing? It's time for dinner, you may be injured but you can still pull your own weight" Ash looks at her "hey Akame who was it you saw when you were hypnotized by Zanku" this catches her off-guard as Ash notices that she was surprised "I'll tell you when I feel it is right. I will tell you this though, everyone in Night Raid, they're all important to me, that includes you too." Ash feels his face go red. As Akame starts walking and says "let's go." "o-ok." Akame continues "it's all meat dishes tonight." "I can't help but feel that it'll be delicious."

 _ **END OF CHAPTER 4: INCINERATE THE EXECUTIONER**_

* * *

 ** _Ryoma is part of something new i intend to add in which you will come up with your own characters and i will pick three of them these are the rules_**

only 1 set of armor one main and one sub weapons

one shield (no door shield)

one category of magic (miracles, pyromancy, sorcery, and abyss varients)

there emotions and their personality, they may or may not know the main OC

names and history

likes and dislikes

and their stats (sl around 180)

 _ **(credits to VGBlackwing for the idea)**_


	5. Chapter 5

_**CHAPTER 5: INCINERATE THE ILLUSION**_

Ash was asleep in his room, dreaming of the time he was still alive, before dying to the king's assassins "hey get up! What are you waiting for?" it was Blaze, trying to wake him up the time before their first and last assassination, their target was the consumed king, Oceiros. "*sigh* I'm up." Ash got up out of his bed and started heading off with the others. "Why are we doing this again?" Ash asked, worried for his comrades. The commander replied "because it's our duty to protect the kingdom, and the king has become a threat." Blaze then pipes up saying "Besides he shouldn't be too difficult." But upon saying that, he was encased by a claw and pulled away. Ash reached out to grab him only to wake up back at base. "What happened?" his forehead then felt a bit heated and placed a hand over it 'was that a dream… or a memory?' Ash then looks down to see Sheele near the base of his bed asleep 'how hard was I sleeping to have not heard her come in?' she then stirs, and says "today you'll be training under me, Ash. I look forward to working with you." He then places a hand on his forehead '*sigh* why is she, of all people, training me?' she then opens her eyes and starts to get up with her glasses falling off in the process.

Before standing up from the chair she placed against his bed, as she then walks over to the table next to his bed and bows to the straight sword on top of the table while saying "good morning friend." 'Is she blind without glasses?' a second later she realizes she's not wearing them and freaks out saying "HUH? WHERE ARE MY GLASSES!?" 'Yep, she's blind.' Ash then gives them to her "oh." she then smiles before saying "let's try this again shall we?"

A little while later, in another part of the base the others were having breakfast. "Are you sure it's ok to leave Sheele in charge of him?" Lubbock says after having a bite of the food on the table. The boss replies "oh, they'll be alright, I am positive Sheele will take a liking to him." Lubbock then asks "what makes you say that?" the boss replies "Ash is quite popular with older women." Leone then raises her hand and says "Yep! That's why I call dibs on being his trainer next." "See he has a natural talent." This infuriates Lubbock as he reels his head back while gritting his teeth before yelling "GOD DAMMIT, THAT IS SUCH BULLCRAP!" the boss then says "you'd probably go so far as to say, he's a lady killer." Both Lubbock and Leone then fall silent staring at the boss "you get it right? Because he's an assassin." They keep staring "oh well, maybe next time."

Akame then walks in saying "so then, about lunch. I was thinking I might make some mapou beef bowls." Lubbock then replies with "well I'd prefer it if you decide between mapou tofu and beef bowl-" he is immediately cut off by Leone and the boss by them saying in unison "sounds good!" Lubbock then looks at them startled before Akame adds "and I'll top it off with a little fried chicken, ok?" Lubbock looks at her slightly defeated saying "fried chicken too! Don't you think that's a bit much" again Leone and the boss simultaneously reply "sounds good!" Lubbock then gives up "ugh, where the heck do they put it all?"

Elsewhere by a stream, Sheele was sitting by on a rock. A second later Ash emerged from the water, wearing a new suit of armour "congratulations, you learned how to swim in armour." Ash asks "Why do I need to swim again?" Sheele then says "it's a requirement as a part of our how to train assassins curriculum. I don't really do any tours or anything, so I kinda specialize in training new recruits like you." Ash wonders why and asks "why don't you do chores?" 'It's kind of hard to mess that up.' Sheele then starts telling him about her mistakes "I tried to cook… buuut I burnt the meat which made Akame a little bit upset." 'I can see why.' "And I caused trouble for Bulat when I tried to clean." 'How can you mess up cleaning' "and Leone laughed at me when I went shopping and bought sugar instead of salt." 'That's expected when dealing with an airhead.' "I tried laundry. But I sort of ended up washing Mine along with the rest of the dirty clothes" "don't feel too bad about the last one." 'BUT HOW DID YOU MESS THAT UP!?' Ash then continues to ask another question "by the way why didn't I see you on the wires with the rest of the team? Wait I think I know, you killed the mother didn't you?" this takes her back a bit "how did you figure that out?" Ash just says "I heard Leone talking about breaking the father's neck, so I assumed you killed the mother, considering I heard something splatter, which happened to disturb my sleep." "Oh I see I'm so sorry." as she bows in apology her glasses fall off "oh, not again" 'how does she not see them? They're right in front of her.' Ash then hands them to her again.

"Now how did you become an assassin?" After Sheele puts her glasses back on she answers with "well it's kind of a complicated story." 'Why does it always have to be a fucking complicated story?' "I grew up in one of the older parts of the imperial capital. I've… never been able to do anything right, I couldn't take pride in a single thing I did. People would always make mean comments about me like, maybe I was crazy or something. But thankfully, I had a friend who was very kind to me. No matter what happened, or how badly I messed up, she never once made fun of me the time I spent with her was the only ray of happiness I had in my entire life. But it-it didn't last for long. One day I was visiting her house like I always did, when a man came to the door. He was her ex-boyfriend. He was furious, yelling and breaking things. And then… he tried to strangle her, I think he was drunk or on something." 'He had too many green blossoms, didn't he?' "My first thought was, 'I need to save my friend'… I was surprisingly calm. I couldn't believe how quickly he died" 'that's what you couldn't believe.' "My friend was so scared she started shaking, but my head was completely clear. When it was all said and done the events of the night were written off as self-defence. But I never heard from my friend again after that. And then a few days later the man's friends came to get revenge, they told me that they've killed my parents, and that they were going to kill me next. Despite all the awful things they said, I was incredibly relaxed. I killed them, all of them, one by one. That was the moment I realized what I must do. 'I'm good at this, at killing. Maybe, because I'm a little crazy, if I kill bad people, I can make the world a better place. I was a solo assassin in the capital when the revolutionary army scouted me out."

'So everyone here has a rough past. Guess I shouldn't judge a book by its cover.' "So how well do you think I'll do here?" Sheele smiles and says "you'll do fine." 'Great! She's patronizing me.' She continues "well unlike me you're a very talented cook" 'so that's what she meant' Ash then hears a voice behind him shout out "You're doing great, Ash." As Bulat emerges from the water 'how the fuck did he get behind me?'

They then head back to base and into the meeting room where the boss had an announcement. "Ash it seems you've made a full recovery, we've acquired Zanku's imperial arms, I want you to try it on." "Wait it's for me?" Bulat immediately says "it's all yours sugar" 'the hell did he just call me?' Lubbock gives him a warning "be careful these things are known or putting a lot of pressure on your mind and body." 'Noted' Ash then proceeds to take it off of her 'I'll test it out to see how imperial arms work, but I don't intend to use it in battle.' The boss then informs Ash that "it wasn't in my book anywhere, so we still don't have much information on it." Akame then says "Zanku was reading people's minds with it, see if you can make it work." While pointing at herself "I'll see what I can do." Ash then proceeds to look at Akame intently trying to activate it but decides to have a bit of fun with her first "you can't wait to eat meat tonight can you?" "*gasp* that's amazing." Leone ruins it for Ash by saying "nope, he hasn't even activated the stupid thing yet." Mine pipes up saying "I sure don't want him to read my mind. It's supposed to have five sights, so quit stalling and try one out." 'I was having a bit of fun, not stalling.'

Ash then sits on the ground to see what the abilities were. 'So then let's see what you can do.' After thinking of what the abilities were, it activates, and the ability it had was not one he thought could be used effectively, as it allowed him to see through Akame, Mine and Sheele's clothes as they were standing in front of him. 'What twisted prick would make something like this?' Mine Asks Ash "what do you see?" he immediately closes his eyes as Mine walks up to him and says "hey what is it?" and Ash still keeps his eyes closed to prevent any problems, only for his head to start hurting as he falls back. Lubbock immediately says "crap, its rejecting him!" Akame then rushes to over to Ash "I'm taking it off!" after removing it Ash felt the pain subside 'if I had the power I used to it might've worked.' The boss then says "it's not a match. Your affinity's a little off." Mine then attempts to insult him by saying "you probably didn't like the way it looked with your armour. They say that your first impression of an imperial arms shows how well you bond with it." 'I see. It probably didn't fit with my fighting style then.'

Akame then gives the imperial arms back to the boss who then says "let's have headquarters examine it, I'm sure it'll be a great asset once we know a little more." Akame then walks to stand next to Ash as she then tells him a little more "sometimes on our missions we come across targets who have imperial arms just as head-hunter Zanku did. Our superiors prefer that we steal, or destroy, as many of them as we possibly can." Ash sees what she's getting at and says "so with every imperial arms we acquire or destroy, we advance the revolutionary army's progress." The boss holds a book out to Ash and says "that's right. Here's a book about imperial arms I'd like you to read." Ash proceeds to take the book from her hands and skims through it while saying "this is impressive, I'm surprised about the amount of weapons in here." The boss tells Ash "you should memorize the details of every weapon in there." Ash then decides to ask "which is the strongest?" the boss immediately replies "it heavily depends on the user." She then places her hand over her missing eye then continues "that said if I had to make a choice, one can manipulate ice. Its owner is quite strong. Fortunately for us though, she's not in the capital right now, she's trying to subdue the people in the north" 'the north is cold from what I understand' Ash then asks "why the north?" the boss replies "the prince of the northern tribes is known as Numa Seika, he's a legendary hero who fights with a spear and has never lost. Not only is he a master strategist, but his people trust him very deeply, which makes him a threat to the empire. He took over the northern fortress capital, and turned it into a base for his tremendous army." 'I have a feeling that Lothric's military was bigger.' "Since then, his forces have begun to invade more and more aggressively. So the empire formed a special unit to fight them off." There is a brief pause before Lubbock speaks up "I don't think we'll have to worry about that. It'll take a year to stop the northern tribe's army, even for her." The boss lowers her hand from her eye and says "we can only hope."

After a second of considering the options Ash says "then let's retrieve as many imperial arms as possible." Leone looks at him "why do you want to retrieve them?" "I think it's obvious, to give ourselves an edge in combat." He then mutters 'The last thing I need is for anyone to die. I've already lost pretty much everyone. I need to protect them, regardless of the cost' Bulat then says "so you don't intend to use them for anything else?" Ash looks down "no not really, I considered checking for any that could bring people back." Everyone's faces turn grim before Ash continues "But I know that's next to impossible, after all the emperor would still be here if that were the case" Akame says to Ash "at least you have some sense as to the possibility of there being an imperial arms capable of that. But don't keep holding onto your weakness, otherwise the enemy will see it and it will get you killed." "I know that." 'I know that all too well'

A few hours later, Ash arrives at the cliff near the base, he was thinking about the past, and everyone he failed. Sheele asks from behind him "Ash, shouldn't you be going to bed soon?" Ash replies "I'll go in a couple minutes. I'm just thinking of everything that happened recently, about the past I guess." Then a small tear appeared on his face, as he remembers his adventures with Siegward, Ryoma and Blaze (and the amount of times he had to rescue the onion with their help.) "Am I… crying? Heh, guess the past hurts." Another goes down after remembering Anri, and how she always looked up to him, as well as Horace, who refused to speak but always respected him for how he handled a situation, no matter how hopeless it was, and then a cascade of tears, as he remembered when Horace went hollow, and how he killed him to protect Anri. Only for her to suffer the same fate, as well as how Siegward died after they had defeated Yhorm. At this point Sheele wraps her arms around Ash, calming him down. "I promise not to tell anyone else about this, so go ahead and cry as much as you need to." This calms him down a bit more "why are you being so nice?" she replies "just feel like I should." "Are you sure you're allowed to be this nice to me?" she then replies "it's alright. I don't see any problem with it, maybe." Ash smiles a little at this "of course you'd say that." He then says "thank you for this." Sheele then looks into the sky after he says this.

After a minute Ash gets out of her embrace and says "I think it's time for you to go to bed now Sheele." She responds with "sure, it's probably a bit late." With this she heads off. A few minutes later Ash notices a white sign on the ground, and proceeds to touch it. Within a minute Ryoma was standing there seeming slightly annoyed this time without his mask on and wearing the armour of the wolf, "about time you got my sign." Ash apologizes "sorry but this places timeline is far less distorted then Lothric's." Ryoma remembers this but doesn't bother doing anything else about it, and just changes the subject "anyway as you can see I followed your directions and ended up here, at Night Raid's base." Ash asks "so what's the situation in your timeline?" Ryoma looks over at the base then back to Ash "it's destroyed." Ash falls silent before asking "any survivors?" Ryoma answers "yeah, only three of them survived." This slightly upsets Ash "it was Bulat, Sheele and Najenda. Akame died helping them escape." Ash looks down and then past the cliff edge, into the forest. "Did you manage to get their weapons?" Ryoma produces a broken katana from his own box. "I could only find one of them, I couldn't find the rest." Ash takes it off of him, upon touching it. It goes from bright white and semitransparent, to red and black. Ash puts it away "who's responsible?" Ryoma looks at him before saying "someone called Esdeath." There is a moment of silence before Ash speaks "see if you can find the survivors, and help them. Or if that's impossible, kill the ones responsible for the destruction of Night Raid in your timeline." Ryoma nods and says "I'll see what I can do, but in the meantime, try not to die." Ash looks at Ryoma with a slight smile, and jokingly says "come on, you know I'm gonna screw up somewhere." With this, Ryoma jumps off of the cliff, disappearing into the trees. And Ash heads back to the base to get some sleep.

In another part of the city, Ash and Leone were walking through, what seemed like a bazaar. "This place is extremely busy, there's a lot going on isn't there." Leone says "yep it's a lively part of town, when you're bored poor, you've gotta keep yourself busy" soon after saying this someone says "so how have you been Leone?" then an old woman piped up "I could use one of your back rubs." Then a man in front of a bar "hey we should go and get a drink sometime!" and then a child "Leone, will you come and play with me later?" Ash looks at Leone inquisitively before asking "why are you so popular with these people?" Leone answers "it's because this is the part of town where I grew up in. I know it sounds crazy, but I was famous around here for my back massage-" she is then cut off by a group of people running at them, Leone seems to recognize them and says "oh crap!" before running away from them, Ash soon follows suit, unsurprised. As they run away Leone looks at Ash and says "so what do you think about my old neighbourhood?" Ash looks back and says "if it weren't for the people chasing us, and the fact that I might end up on their hit list, I'd give it a nine."

After a few minutes of solid running, Ash stopped to look back "I think we lost… them." When Ash turned back, Leone was nowhere to be seen 'damn it Leone, how the hell did you miss me? And also…" Ash looks around, realizing that he was lost 'where the fuck am I?' he starts looking around for anything familiar, such as a landmark or house but found nothing. He continued looking around, until he heard someone behind him shout "you there!" Ash turns around, to see a girl wearing the same armour as the guards, and a dog on a leash. "You seem to need assistance, citizen." She then stops in front of him and salutes before saying "proud member of the imperial guard, Seryu at your service!" 'Imperial guard, well I hope she doesn't realize I killed her captain."

Her dog then starts whimpering a bit, she then squats down to say "Koro, you hungry buddy. We'll eat soon." Ash then looks at it a slight bit more then says "excuse me, but what's that dog?" she then picks him up and stands before saying "he's my imperial arms, Hekatonkheires, don't worry he only bites bad guys." 'I remember him from the book, not something I can mess with without dying… a lot' Seryu then says "oh that's right you needed help didn't you?" Ash weighed the options for a second before saying "It's ok, I'm only slightly lost. I still remember the general direction of where I was." Seryu immediately drops Koro and says "I'll help you get there. I'm on patrol right now anyway" she then takes hold of Ash's hand and says "let's go. I won't let you get lost." And almost instantly, the dog had a tantrum, which went on for a couple of seconds before Ash says "do all guards have strange pets like this?" Seryu replies "of course not." As she picks up Koro "I'm the only guard who has an imperial arms. Koro, um… well that's the name I've given him anyway, he won't cooperate with anyone unless he can tell they have an extremely high affinity with him." 'Oh god's, please don't tell me there's more exposition.' "Supposedly, none of the top ranked officers were able to click with Koro, so they started running tests on low level grunts like me. I was told he responded to my righteous heart while I was getting examined. And he's been my cute little companion ever since. Right Koro?" she says while snuggling Koro, the dog appears to agree with her while Ash stands there not knowing what was going on (but glad for the lack of exposition.)

After a few minutes they ended up in the area Ash was before him and Leone started running from, what he assumed, were people she stole money from. "I think this is where I was. Thanks for your assistance." Seryu salutes, again, while saying "I'm honoured, and let me know if you see any evil, you can depend on us to rip it to pieces." Ash just says "sure, I'll see if I can contact you." Seryu immediately sets off saying "time to go little buddy. You still hungry? Let's pick out a few death row prisoners for you to snack on." As she gets further away Ash figures he should tell Ryoma, as well as the boss, about the current situation 'if she goes unchecked it could end badly for us.' Ash then opens up a telepathic link to Ryoma, as he never left the world 'Ryoma, I need you to watch someone for me.' Ryoma says 'sure, who do you want tailed?' Ash replies 'an imperial guard called Seryu, I need you to follow her for the next few days, got it?' Ryoma replies 'got it.' With that they sever their connection, and Ash attempts to locate Leone.

 _ **END OF CHAPTER 5: INCINERATE THE ILLUSION**_


	6. Chapter 6

_**CHAPTER 6: INCINERATE THE DELUSIONAL**_

Leone and Ash were standing on top of a building of an eastern design, peering down into the streets below, "so this is the capitals red light district. Not exactly what I had in mind." Ash thought that it would actually have red lights, instead of purple smoke and white and orange lanterns "oh Ash, you and your way of seeing things." Ash looks at her slightly annoyed "anyway, that money ain't gonna make itself so I say we get cooking. LIONELLE, TRANSFORM!" she is then wrapped in flames as her form starts to slightly change as her hair gets longer, and grows a tail, as well as some animal ears, and her hands change to paws. "When I get into beast mode, I feel like I can just take on the whole world!" Ash starts applauding silently, only for Leone to pick him up and say "come on, let's get in there and make a mess of things!" Ash says "why are you holding me?" just before Leone jumps into the air and onto a building across the street from them, and then jumps to another house, and another and another, and continues for about a minute.

After a while they arrive at their destination, or more accurately the attic. Leone stands up and says "phew, looks like we made it" as Ash lies on the floor, as he was wearing a shield and great sword on his back making it difficult for him to get up, forcing him to roll to the side, before saying "couldn't you have warned me first?" ignoring this, she helps Ash to his feet and walks over to a panel in the floor, and lifts it up as Leone says "look at this." Below them Ash saw multiple women doing various things, but all of them looked, and sounded like they had consumed way too many Green Blossoms. And what he smelled reeked of narcotics, and soon two people entered the room and he heard one of them say "ooh, they sure are going to town. If you want me to bring you more, you keep being good little girls, you understand?" most look at him and reply in unison "okay." Then one of the two looks over at one of the women, who seems to be more unstable than most others "hey boss, what about that one over there?" the other one presumably his boss says "eh, I'm done with her. Her mind's gone and she stinks of fish, just get rid of her, these bitches are pretty easy to replace." The woman they were talking about then reaches for one of them saying "ah, please, I need more." Before being punched by the thug. The thug then says "I guess we need to pick up a few more from the slums." The boss then says "yeah, these bitches are a dime a dozen. Show em a bit of money and they'll do whatever you want."

Ash just grits his teeth before saying "this is worse than I initially thought. Those sick fucks." Leone then says "that girl he was just hitting, she was a friend of mine from back home." She then slams her fist into her palm and says "now I'm pissed, let's just slaughter these pukes and be done with it!" Ash just says "understood" as he unsheathes his bastard sword. After a few seconds Ash and Leone burst through the roof, into where their targets were meeting, while saying in unison "we're here to send every single one of you… straight to hell!" the thug that punched the woman from earlier yells to every one of the guards to "get those punks, bring back their heads!" and then every guard chares at them with what seems to be knives, and katanas. Ash charges in and cleaves the first two guards in two with inhuman strength and a third comes at him only to have his skull caved in, by the force of Ash's helmet being thrown at him before Ash immediately retrieves it and puts it back on. And across the room, Ash hears one of the guards yell "KILL HER!" as Ash proceeds to grab the centre of the blade with his right hand, and jabs the cross guard of his sword into the eye of the one remaining guard, as Leone knocked her share into a wall. The thug is visibly shaking and says "I-I'm not gonna die, I'm not gonna let you kill me!" as he pulls out a gun and shoots at Ash only for the bullet to bounce off of the black Armour as Ash says "if you shot at the eye slits you might've survived." as he cleaves the thug in two and launches him into the roof as Ash's blade came up from the ground, through the thugs legs. Leaving only their boss standing before Leone, using one hand, immediately picks him up. Their boss then starts pleading "please take whatever you want, you want money? You want drugs? I'll give you anything, I'll give you everything. Just let me go please!" Leone says "anything I want huh, thanks but the only thing I want from you is your life." He then starts gagging while saying "just who the hell are you people anyway!?" Leone has a smirk on her face before saying "oh we're just bitches!" before punching him into the wall behind him "I mean honestly who better than a couple of bitches to take you out "the fuck did you just call us?"

A few minutes and meters after completing the mission Ash asks Leone "what's going to happen to all those women he drugged? They seemed mostly broken." Leone says to Ash "unfortunately, that's not really our call." Ash looks at the engravings on his gauntlet "I know that, but we still need to help them." Leone considers this before saying "there's a retired doctor who still lives around here. I'll tell him what happened. He'd probably be more than happy to lend a hand, the doc always responds to pretty girls, so everybody wins. Know what I'm saying?" Ash understands and says "I think so." He then smirks a little, but Leone doesn't see this as he's wearing a helmet "I guess you do have a soft side, don't you?" Leone looks away from Ash, saying "I used to be friends with one of those women, that's all it is. That's the only reason I wanted to help." Ash then replies, saying "well I honestly don't care, provided they can start over, it doesn't matter what you say." Leone then stops, and asks "Ash, can you remove your helmet?" Ash removes his helmet in response while saying "sure, but why?" Leone then says "I've been meaning to tell you something." She then leans into his ear and whispers "when you let yourself smile you're really sweet." She then tries to lick his ear only for him to backflip behind her, and grab her by the waist, and proceeds to perform an Astoran Suplex. "Don't ever lick me! Understood!?" Leone then goes "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I learned my lesson, so please let me go!" with this Ash lets go of her and says "do you know how the other group's doing right now?"

With Mine and Sheele, they had just completed their assignment, and were heading back to base. "That Tybil guy was so obnoxiously careful. I thought we'd never track him down." Says Mine, Sheele replies "yeah that's true, but at least we completed the mission on time." after a second or so, Sheele and Mine hear rustling and jump to the side, just in time for an explosion as something collided with the ground. Mine and Sheele stand their ground after a couple of feet, then Mine says "who is that!? Is it an enemy? I couldn't sense her at all!" as she looks at where the ground caved in, and sees a girl with auburn hair, and the armour of an imperial guard. Sheele says "the other guards can't conceal their auras, so she must be on a completely different level." The guard then holds up a piece of paper, and says "I know you. You're the one from the wanted posters, Sheele of Night Raid I presume. And judging from your friend's weapon, I guess she's from Night Raid too. I'm so glad I spent the night on watch or I never would've found you two." The guard then looks at them sinisterly "oh how badly I wanted to meet you Night Raid! I'm imperial guard member, Seryu Ubiquitous! AND IN THE NAME OF ABSOLUTE JUSTICE, I'LL BANISH YOUR EVIL RIGHT HERE AND NOW!"

A few seconds go by before Mine says "well now that you've blown my cover, you can either die where you're standing, or you can come with us!" Seryu then says "they say you're wanted either dead or alive, so that means I can execute you. Bandits like you are the reason why my father died in the line of duty. And you were the ones who murdered my mentor, Captain Ogre. I'LL NEVER FORGIVE YOU NIGHT RAID!" Mine and Sheele then get ready as Mine says "so you're that eager to fight us, huh?" Mine then aims pumpkin at Seryu, saying "fine, I'll make it quick!" and then fires a barrage of energy at her for six seconds, creating a thick cloud of dust, before she stops, and says "did I get her yet?" the dust then clears leaving a giant, pissed off, dog full of holes, and Seryu right behind it. Surprised Sheele asks Mine "you see that? Is that what I think it is!?" Mine replies "I'm afraid so. This girl has an organic type of imperial arms." Seryu immediately attacks, shouting "TONFA GUNS!" as she shoots at them, only for Mine and Sheele to immediately dodge away from the gunfire.

As they dodge, Mine switches the firing mode of Pumpkin, and Sheele draws out Exstase, and continue to dodge the bursts of fire from Seryu. Seryu then yells at the dog "KORO, SUPPER TIME!" while pointing at Mine and Sheele. It then lunges at Sheele, spinning with its mouth open, revealing rows of teeth, hoping to eat Sheele. Only for its mouth to be sliced in half by Exstase, causing it to roll and bounce along the road, before ramming into lamppost behind her, while she says "sorry." To it, Sheele then walks towards Seryu, flicking the blood off of her weapon. As she walks towards Seryu, something casts a shadow over Sheele, Sheele looks back to see the dog looking even MORE pissed than it was before, with its mouth and teeth, healing quickly. Sheele stands in front of it slightly frozen. Then from behind the creature, Mine fires an extremely powerful blast, sending it back to Seryu.

Mine says to Sheele "Don't you even remember what the book said Sheele? Organic type imperial arms always have a hidden core you need to destroy, otherwise they just keep regenerating. And it doesn't have a heart so Akame's sword won't do any good either!" Sheele says "this is a surprisingly nasty opponent." Seryu just looks at the two and says to the creature "Koro, bulk up." The creature's arms then become larger, and buffer, than they were before. And Mine says, in response to seeing this "ugh, that's not cute!" Seryu then yells "Crush her!" while pointing at Mine. The creature then rushes forward, while punching furiously in their direction, Sheele then stands in front of Mine saying "just stay behind me!" while holding up Exstase, to defend against the blows.

But just before contact, they were then pushed out of the way by someone wearing plated armour and a helmet shaped like a wolf. And he blocked the blows, by striking each attack with a black katana, that was glowing purple with each strike, before dodging out of the way himself, as Mine blasted the creature with an immense amount of energy, destroying half of its face. "Damn it's already starting to regenerate again. This is not good!" Seryu starts laughing before saying "you should never underestimate an imperial arms." Sheele then runs through the dust, and rushes Seryu saying "one thing about weapons, they can't keep moving if the wielder is dead." Sheele then yells "EXSTASE!" the entire battle field is then filled with a bright light. Seryu attempts to shield her eyes from the light as Sheele closes in, saying "you've run out of time!" Sheele then releases a flurry of thrusting attacks, which she sustains for seven seconds before transitioning to slash attacks, forcing Seryu to flee.

The dog notices this and rushes to assist his master, only to be shot in the back by Mine, as she says "hey you, you're supposed to be fighting me. Stop getting side-tracked." she then yells to the new arrival "you there, I don't care why you're here but I need you to distract him" he nods and rushes the creature, as it throws a punch he slides across the ground dodging the attack, he then sheathes the katana before releasing a flurry of attacks, he then sheathes the blade again before making a downward slash, sending a streak of dark energy its way. As it slices off the creatures arm, a gunshot is heard, but dismissed as Mine blasts the creature with another immense burst of energy, as he starts regenerating again, a voice is heard from the forest "KORO, USE YOUR TRUMP CARD, GO BERSERK!" and with this the creature becomes far stronger, as its eyes and body turn red, it gains increased muscle mass, tearing the collar apart in the process. It soon releases a mighty roar, stunning everyone nearby, except for the wolf soldier, as he rushes the beast and starts to slice it up trying to stall it, only to be punched into a nearby tree, shattering the bark and unleashing a brief flash of light, before he falls to the ground. The creature then picks up Mine, holding her in one hand, as she shouts "SHEELE!" Sheele is then heard yelling back "HOLD ON!" Seryu then screams to the creature "GOOD BOY! NOW SQUEEEEEZE!" the creature then does as it was told, and squeezes Mine and as she tries to escape its grasp she screams, as it breaks her arm.

It then loses its grip when a beam of dark energy, and a pair of scissors, slice off its arm. Sheele then lands right next to next to Mine, who was underneath the creatures arm, and the figure was taking a swig of whatever was in his flask as Mine says to Sheele "you did it." With relief on her face, Sheele replies "that was a close one!" as she says this, a bullet goes through Sheele's chest as a gunshot is heard. Upon seeing this, the figure reacts with inhuman speed, and rushes to her, as the creature leaps towards Sheele and tries to consume her. And as it closed in on her, the figure attempted to push her out of the way, only to fail as he loses his arm in the attempt, right before she is torn in two, by the force of the creature, Mine screams "No! SHEEEELE!" as she then stands up, and starts to walk over to Seryu saying "god damn you, you just killed Sheele you bitch!" after one more step she screams in pain.

After screaming, the figure grabbed her shoulder, as the guards then closed in on them. "It'd be best if you run, there's no point in fighting in your condition." Says the figure, Mine looks at his arm and says "you're not any better off" as she says this, the figure pulls out a yellow flask and takes a sip, causing flame to flicker around his arm before it completely regenerated. "You were saying?" as the figure then says this, an extremely bright light starts shining behind them, blinding the guards. "What the hell? I can't see!" "Be careful men we don't know what it is!" after the flash, Mine turned around and spotted what remained of Sheele holding Extase. As it shone brightly Sheele meekly said "Ex-ta-se." upon seeing this, Mine screamed Sheele's name, only for Sheele to reply "get out of here Mine, while you still have a chance, hurry!" Mine yells back "No, I can't!" Sheele then looks over at Mine, she then turns to run, but only gets a few feet before some guards step in front of her, only to lose all of their limbs as the figure rushed in front of her "GET GOING!" this forces her to run even faster.

As Mine was fleeing, the figure stayed behind, to try and save Sheele, or at the very least retrieve her soul to give it to Ash. This was a bit harder to accomplish than he thought, as Seryu yelled out to the creature "KORO! FINISH HER!" and with that Ryoma saw Sheele, or what was left of her, disappear into the creature's mouth, and instead of her soul going to Ryoma, it stayed inside of the creature. 'Well shit!' after seeing that her soul won't come to him, he rushes Seryu, the creature and the guard. As each of the guards attempted to stop him, he dismembered and decapitated them, making a beeline for the creature "KORO! EAT HIM!" after Seryu screamed this to the creature it did the same thing it did to Sheele. Except this time their target wanted them to do it, so as it closed in on Ryoma, instead of dodging or leaping out of the way, he leaped into its mouth with a sort of black crystal in his hands. And with that, no one remembered the figure or what happened.

Back at base, everyone was waiting for Mine and Sheele to arrive. After a half hour had passed, Mine showed up without Sheele, Ash spoke "hey Mine, where's Sheele?" Mine only gives a partial answer "she- she's…" that was all they needed, to know what had happened to Sheele. Everyone's faces were a mix between shock, and despair. But nobody saw Ash's face, as he was wearing a helmet, but he didn't utter a single word until a minute later when he said "Akame help get Mine inside, I'll go and get the medicinal supplies." This surprises everyone, as they would've expected him to break down, scream or even blame Mine for what happened, but he just told Akame to take her inside, while he got the medicine.

After Akame and Ash had treated Mine's wounds, Ash left the base and went to the cliff where he'd usually meditate, and was also the place that Sheele had comforted him. When he remembered what Sheele had said and done for him that night, he felt one of the few emotions he rarely did, rage. His hand immediately caught fire, and the flame was growing larger and faster than it ever had before. And he immediately incinerated a nearby tree out of rage. A voice in his head said 'Calm down, you knew this would've happened eventually Ash.' Ash replies "Shut up." The voice continued 'you knew that this would happen, you knew that one of them would die. And you could've prevented Sheele's death if you had just accepted our strength… instead you sealed it away, like a coward!' Ash retorts "I don't need your strength. I don't accept your strength." 'And yet you accept our advice.' Ash replies annoyed "That's the only thing I will ever accept from you." The voice then says with a slightly sinister tone 'We will see… we will see.' And with this, Ash heads back inside to finish up dinner.

 _ **END OF CHAPTER 6: INCINERATE THE DELUSIONAL**_

* * *

 ** _Sorry for the wait everyone. I got distracted... ALOT when making this chapter_**

 ** _And also sorry BlitzNeutral69, it was a necessity to show whats going on with Ash._**


	7. Chapter 7

_**CHAPTER 7: INCINERATE THE BEASTS PART 1**_

It was the morning after Sheele died, Mine was having lunch with Akame across the table from her, and Ash was in the kitchen washing the dishes. Mine was about to eat one of the items on her plate, only to drop it on the plate when she felt a brief surge of pain as she attempted to move her left arm by accident. Immediately Akame picks it up with her spoon and says "here." Mine immediately replies with "I don't need you too spoon feed me!" Akame just says "but it'll get cold." Mine reluctantly looks down before saying "okay I guess you win." She then opens her mouth for Akame to feed her. Ash looks back while she continues to feed Mine 'I'm surprised at how calm she is. Despite what happened with Sheele, I'll have to ask her about it later, and the one responsible for Sheele was Seryu, I guess that explains why I sensed Ryoma escape the world as he was supposed to be watching her… and' Ash looks to the right of his ribcage 'it seems I can't escape my curse, or my pain.'

Later at night, Ash was roaming the corridors as he couldn't get to sleep 'I wonder if they have a forge, it could help a lot, as I could possibly create a powerful enough weapon if i use Titanite.' As Ash ponders this he figures he should grab a snack as it may help him concentrate, only to find Akame in the kitchen "hey Akame. You here for a snack" he says as he noticed she was holding a plate with food on it she replies "no but they were always one of Sheele's favourites." 'so a type of offering then.' Akame continues "since our work's always been done behind the scenes, Sheele's name probably isn't even in the revolutionary record books. So if I don't hold on to her memory, then it'll be like she was never even here" 'that explains why Ryoma was always in the watchdogs.' "She might've been absent minded, but she was always the kindest person on the team." Ash notices her mouth slightly twitch 'she's hurting, but she's not showing it. If she doesn't let it out it'll consume her.' After thinking this, Ash figures out how to help her let it out "honestly I'm impressed with how you're handling Sheele's death, not many can do that. Honestly if I was a normal person, I'd say you're used to this." Akame notices this and drops the plate, shattering on the floor, as Akame says "you think that I'm… I'm used to it?" Akame starts to visibly shake before taking hold of Ash's cloak and pulling on it, bringing him close. "Sure maybe I've see more deaths than I care to count. But this..." She then faces Ash with tears in her eyes "you don't ever get used to this! God damn it, you just hide it and you finish the mission! I just have to act like everything's okay but on the inside I've been falling apart!" Akame then sobs for a few seconds before continuing "we're assassins Ash, we have to be able to switch things on and off! You think that I'm calm, well you're wrong!" she starts sobbing more intensely "you don't know what it's like. You don't know what losing her means to me! You don't know." As she finishes her last part, Ash embraces her saying "I do know what it's like. I know exactly how you feel. Believe it or not, I lost everyone who was important to me, even my brother." Akame temporarily stops when he says this "every single one of my friends died, all of them. And if that wasn't enough pain for me to suffer, my brother betrayed me." He remembers when they were at the kiln of the first flame when he was just about to summon the fire keeper, only for Blaze to immediately attack him for unknown reasons "so Akame." Ash slowly increases his body temperature before continuing "how about I make you a promise?" this catches her attention "I promise to not die as long as you don't, and I also promise that you can turn to me if you ever feel sad, ok? After all I intend to prevent you from feeling any more pain, regardless of the cost." Akame replied "I'd like that." He proceeds to smile, something he rarely did 'I know.'

The next morning Ash and Akame were in the training grounds trying to improve their skills. Ash was about to use a strong attack only to get struck in the side knocking him off balance "damn you hit like Yhorm." Ash stands up before saying "come on let's have another round." Akame replies "don't you think you should rest." Only for Ash to say "you can't expect your enemy to allow you to rest. And besides I need to practice, so come at me!" Ash then rushes Akame, only to notice something in the corner of his eye. He then immediately drops to the ground and strikes Bulat in the side, causing him to wince in pain "what was that for!" Ash apologizes "sorry Bulat, reflexes. Why did you try to punch me?" Bulat replies "well I thought you could use a lesson in paying attention to your surroundings." Bulat clutches his side "but it looks like you've already experienced that sort of training." Ash looks at his hand "well I have a promise to keep." He looks at his wooden sword "and I'll do whatever I can to see it through." He finishes with a steel resolve. Bulat goes to give Ash a pat on the back only to be thrown over him onto the dirt, again Ash apologizes "sorry reflexes." Bulat stands up and laughs it off "man, if you keep your reflexes up like that, nobody could touch you. Anyway you mind sparring with me for a while." Ash looks over at Akame and then says "sure, why not?"

Bulat then picks up a staff and Ash stands ready. Bulat then shouts "YOU BETTER WATCH YOURSELF BECAUSE I'M PRETTY GOOD WITH A SPEAR!" He closes the distance extremely quickly but Ash expected it and sidesteps avoiding the blow, Bulat immediately turns around to strike again only for Ash to parry the blow with his fist and Riposte with a stabbing motion. Only for Bulat to jump back out of the way. Bulat looks at him amazed "you're pretty impressive, I didn't think anyone could parry with a fist." Ash proceeds to attack while saying "takes a lot of practice." They continue to spar with Akame smiling at Ash from the side lines.

Meanwhile elsewhere, a cart with an armoured escort was passing through a town. "Yet another devastated village. A nation is nothing without its people." Says an old man in the cart, a young girl next to him says "you really do care, don't you father? Enough to return to the snake pit of the capital. It makes me proud." The old man replies saying "this is no time to cower in retirement and let life pass me by. I intend to fight that minister 'til my very last breath." His daughter replies "and I intend to watch over you every step of the way." Her father looks over to her "I'm lucky to have such a brave daughter. Now if only you didn't scare away all of your suitors." Immediately the daughter became flustered and tried to reply saying "w-what, now what does that have to do with anything!" her father simply laughed, right before the cart came to an abrupt halt "what's happening out there!?" said the father as his daughter looked out of the window to see a giant sword protruding from the ground, and soon a figure in armour landed behind it. The armour resembling that of a lion with wolf pelt over his shoulders, the figure then pulled the sword from the ground with relative ease despite the blade being as thick as his body. He then faced the soldiers who were guarding the cart. The old man said "more bandits! This area is getting worse all the time!" his daughter immediately jumped out of the cart saying "don't worry father, I'll take care of this!" as she and the guards stood at the ready she then said "guards get ready." When the figure noticed that they were preparing for a fight, the figure raises his ridiculously large sword and crosses his left arm over his right in a salute. The daughter then ordered them to "take him out!" Immediately the guards attacked him with the old man's daughter close behind. But before the guards could land a single strike, the figure stomped his foot into the ground following up with a spinning motion, and bisected every guard except for the old man's daughter as she was just out of dodge, but it destroyed her spear regardless and made her right arm unusable as it had sliced through the bicep, and caused a small gash. Defeated she fell to the ground and expected the figure to finish her off. But the figure was uninterested in her and proceeded to walk towards the carriage, dropping a slender round bottle of golden water next to her as he went.

The guard who was driving the carriage who saw what had happened to his comrades was about to defend himself as the figure neared, only for him to be thrown off of the cart by a single punch to the face, the figure then hopped onto the carriage driver seat and was about to take off, only for it to not move at all as the horse couldn't bear the weight of the carriage and the figures sword, disappointed the figure then hopped off of the carriage and said to the driver "something's wrong with your horse, it can't pull the carriage." The figure then realized that he had knocked him out when he was getting on "damn! I really need to hold back on these people to actually get a good fight." 'Guess my brother was right with how he handled his strength. But why did he waste his time trying to deal with mine?' The figure then stood up and reached into the box on his belt. He then produced a coiled sword, the figure then concentrated ridiculously hard as a flame surrounded both him and the sword, the figure felt his strength resurging, but dissipating soon after and going back into the sword. By the time the attempted transfer was complete, the sword was encased by black flames, before dissipating 'the souls of dark and death are now stuck in a sword, like the souls of light and life.' Then cursed his brother "Damn you Ash!"

While this was going on the daughter ran away with a guard, while her father went a different direction in case the figure was after him. But instead of the figure finding him, three people stood surprised while looking at him each were wearing black coat and one with blonde hair the size of a child wore shorts and held a flute. And another, which looked more like a beast than a man, was holding an axe of some type. While the third, which looked a bit older than the two, had no weapon. The old man fell back surprised at their sudden appearance "you-you're an imperial officer!" he said after noticing their uniforms, the man with grey hair proceeded to bow before saying "yes I am, and I once had a deep respect for your diplomacy sir." The old man simply pointed while attempting to back up before saying "a-are you the one who sent that monster? Why are you doing this?!" the man simply looked at him confused before answering his question "I don't know of any beast we could've sent after you. But regardless, it's because my master ordered It." Immediately he decapitated the old man with his hand before continuing "and the wishes of my master will always be realised."

A few seconds later, the new group arrived at the location where the figure had massacred the guards and looked upon the field with confusion the bestial one then said "look at this, fourteen guards sliced up, whoever did this must've gotten a lot of experience points for it." The man with grey hair looked at the bestial man and said "don't forget the mission Daidara, we need to make this seem like it was Night Raid's doing." All three began to take out stacks of paper and threw them all over the place, each one had Night Raid's signature symbol. The beast man, or Daidara, said "if you ask me, the minister's idea is a pain in the ass. Why not plug his political enemies like he usually does?" the greying man replied "because this plan would have no effect on ministers under the protection of great general Budo." The third figure, the one the size of a kid, said disappointedly "man there's no one here who's face looks good enough to collect." And in an almost comedic fashion, the three hear yelling after the cart's insides were destroyed when someone was trying to get it to move "DAMN IT!" Immediately the three turn around to see the figure that made Swiss cheese out of the guards "WHAT IN THE ABYSS IS WRONG WITH THIS THING!" The greying man then signalled to the others that they should leave him alone as they scattered the rest of the flyers. After they left the figure somehow managed to set the carriage on fire and started screaming "FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK! HOW THE FUCK DID IT GET ON FIRE!"

A day or so later back with Ash and Night Raid, They were called in to the meeting room for some news. The said "now that everyone is here. I'm afraid I have some bad news, Esdeath has taken the northern tribe and has now returned to the imperial capital." Everyone was immediately shaken, while Ash was simply confused. The boss then took out a stick of tobacco before facing Leone and saying "Leone I would like you to make your way to the capital, and figure out what general Esdeath is up to." Leone salutes before vigorously saying "you got it! I've been wondering what that chick is like." The boss then takes the tobacco away from her mouth and says "she's a disturbed psychopath who likes killing. Don't be careless!" Leone then shrugs before nonchalantly saying "alright don't worry about it." Ash then noticed that she smiled kind of insanely after saying this. The boss lights her tobacco and then raises it to her mouth and then says "and also, since her arrival in the capital, there has been an increase in assassinations of imperial officials. As of today, four officers and sixty bodyguards have been murdered. What concerns me are these flyers they've been scattering around that claim that Night Raid is responsible for the homicides." Bulat immediately pipes up saying "so they're trying to stick the whole thing on us, huh?" Ash has a different idea of their plan "or they're trying to trap us. But still wouldn't it be ridiculous for any assassin to leave flyers behind?" The boss faces Ash and replies "that's how most people felt about it at first. But now public opinion is starting to change." Ash looks at her confused and ask "why's that?" the boss replies "all of the victims had first rate guards when the crimes were committed. They couldn't have been overpowered by ordinary thugs." Mine simply looks at the boss with an annoyed look "so basically these guys are going after the big fish on purpose. Only a few people could pull that off." Akame continues on Mine's train of thought "that would only be us or someone equally skilled." The boss continues what she was saying "it's safe to assume two things, they probably have imperial arms and they're working for general Esdeath." Ash ponders it for a second before saying "so what I just said earlier could be right." Bulat looks at Ash and says "seems so. She most likely wants to take us out herself." The boss then addresses everyone and says "now that we know that it's a trap, I want to throw two more things out there. Firstly, the people they're assassinating are all competent individuals who disagree with the ministers policies, and recognize the need for revolution. After we create the new nation, allies like them will be crucial to its success. To put it simply we cannot afford to continue losing them. I'd like to hear your thoughts." Ash answers with "I don't deal with politics but someone using our name to do the opposite of what we're trying to do, is something I can't abide by." Everyone looks approvingly at Ash.

"And now for the secondary matter, we have acquired a secondary target." 'A secondary target?' Leone asks "who is it?" the boss produces a piece of paper and shows it to everyone. Upon seeing the picture, Ash is immediately filled with anger, and Akame was the only one to notice. "This particular individual was seen at one of the sites of the assassinations of the officials burning down a carriage. As for why we don't know, but what we do know is that he may be part of the group responsible for the assassinations. If you see him then you know what to do." Everyone except Akame and Ash confirmed, before the boss let out "good! That settles it, show the bastards what happens when they abuse our name. Night Raid will not be sullied! There are two of us that they will likely target next, Akame and Lubbock, Ash and Bulat. You will guard the person I assign to you." Ash replies "Understood! We just need the location and we'll be there." The boss then tells Ash and Bulat where their assignment is "your charge will be boarding a cruise ship currently docked at the Grand Canal, near the imperial capital. The reeyusa."

A little while before they set out on their respective assignments, Ash was retrieving his knight armour from his box when someone knocked on the door to his room "come in." the door opened revealing Akame as she walked in "hey Akame. Aren't you supposed to be getting ready?" Akame replies "yep I've already gotten prepared. I just wanted to see how you're doing." Ash tells Akame "just need to get this armour on, other than that I'm fine." Akame asks Ash "would you mind if I help?" He replies "sure go right ahead." At this point Ash had already put on his gauntlets, leggings and gambeson, but was having trouble with the chest plate as the straps were a pain to deal with alone. Akame starts to help with the straps before asking "do you know who the secondary target is?" Ash replies "so you noticed." He clenches his hand causing tiny amounts of burning ash to float out of his fist, but goes unnoticed by Akame "it's my brother." Upon saying this, Akame feels an immense amount of hate in his Aura "you said he betrayed you. How did he?" a brief silence follows, before he pipes up "I think its best I start from the beginning, so you understand why. We were given a mission to restore our home to what it was before it fell to ruin. When we set out, we were pitted against near impossible odds. There was death around every corner, and we even faced adversaries who required four or more people, equipped with the strongest weapons and armour that could be forged. The first was one, the Iudex, was simply there to challenge us, in other words test our metal and the second was intentionally trying to impede our progress. He was called Vordt of the Boreal valley. He nearly killed me and my brother more than once. After we defeated him, we headed to the settlement below the high wall, where we met Yoel, the one responsible for his betrayal. When we arrived, the residents of the settlement had gone insane and killed each other when we had arrived. After we went through the settlement, we headed to a church as ballista sized bolts came from its direction. There we met an ally who had the same mission, his name was Siegward. We parted ways after we helped him slay a beast. We then headed to a place called the road of sacrifices. There we met two other allies, Anri and Horace. They told us where we could find one of the keys to fixing our home, the cathedral of the deep. That place was a bust as all it had been a small doll. But after we left, Blaze headed over Yoel, I didn't think much about it at the time, but he ended up stronger, if only slightly. We then dealt with the group called the abyss watchers after traversing the poisonous swamp. They were far more of a threat than Vordt as each one was just as strong as him, but after defeating them, Blaze fell off of a bridge to an unknown area, leaving me to fight my way through the catacombs alone. Until I got to Wolnir, where he re-joined with me, and was a deciding factor in the battle. After that we arrived at Irithyll. There we met back up with Anri, but Horace was nowhere to be found. Anri told us that she lost Horace in the catacombs. We then rushed back to the catacombs into the smouldering lake. The place Blaze ended up when he fell off of the bridge. After a bit of searching… we managed to find Horace." Akame then thought she heard a flame before Ash continued "when we found him, he had gone insane, and tried to kill us as soon as he saw us. At that point we had no other choice but to put him down as there wasn't anything left of his sanity. We then continued back, we didn't tell Anri what happened and just told her that we couldn't find him. And then we left to continue on our journey, we then ran into Siegward a few minutes later. We learned where his objective lay afterwards… and I'm rambling again. Sorry about that. I'll tell you the rest later." After finishing this, Akame realizes that he had lost just as much as her, as his brother betrayed him like her sister and his home was destroyed. After realising this she then embraces him as he did for her, and says "you know that I'm here for you just as much as you are for me, right?" Ash simply smiles, before Lubbock comes along and ruins the moment by saying "hey Akame how long are you-" Lubbock stops as he looks in horror at the scene in front of him, before shouting at the top of his lungs "DAMMIT!"

 _ **A Few Hours Later, Akame's end at a village outside of the capital**_

"Rice reserves, huh. Must be pretty smart." Lubbock remarks, Akame then follows up with "all that rice will make a lot of people happy." As soon as she says that, her stomach grumbles signifying that she was hungry. Lubbock looks at her and was about to tell Akame that she could have his rations as long as she took out any targets that came close, before having another idea. He takes out his rations and presents them to Akame before saying "you can have my rations if you-" Akame immediately takes a bite of the rations (and a bit of Lubbock's hand) before he could finish his sentence.

A little while later Lubbock had finished setting up the barrier to feel if anyone was nearby "no action here. Looks like we completely missed the mark this time." Akame responds with "don't let your guard down yet." Lubbock replies "I won't, I won't." Akame then thinks back to Ash 'Ash, Bulat, if they're after your target, please come back safe.'

 _ **Ash's end, on the cruise ship.**_

'This is more akin to an eastern fortress than a cruise ship… this will be an interesting fight.' Ash thinks before looking at the crowd in the centre. "It seems that our assigned person of interest is surrounded by competent guards. It'll be difficult for anyone who's competent at fighting, let alone those who are untrained. Regardless it'll be best that I don't let my guard down" upon saying this Ash feels a presence close in on the back of his head and immediately raises his right hand in defence, and after feeling the impact he looked to the side to find Bulat in his armour "are you sure you should be standing there in your armour?" he is taken back by this but soon responds "how are you able to see me? I'm using Incursio's trump card you shouldn't be able to see me." Ash looks at him for a second before realizing that he was transparent 'I see, it looks like the sorcery camouflage and seems to act the same way' "I guess I'm used to those sorts of tricks." Bulat eyes him curiously before Ash follows up with "by the way, how many times have you tried to hit me so far?" he says with an annoyed tone "I only tried to teach you to be on your guard all those times." Ash then recalls a memory of him trying out new techniques before dodging out of the way of his fist, and another where he was mopping the kitchen floor, where he broke the shaft of the mop over Bulat's head, and another time where he 'accidentally' tore open Mine's dress when hanging out everyone's washing, again he was met with a fist where he actually retaliated with a swift kick to the face "I don't recall a moment where you tried to do that when I was actually 'trying' to fight someone else. *sigh* but still that armour is quite interesting, must be useful during those times when the target is untrained in stealth." Bulat then replies "that's right, got me through the battle with the southern tribe, I kind of like to think of it as my partner." At this Ash looks away before saying "then you shouldn't be relying on it so heavily, Bulat." Bulat looks at Ash before he continues "you won't be able to stand by yourself if you trust and rely on them too much. So don't keep relying on it unless you want to die." He said before both saw some small sparks on Bulat's armour. "Seems like you're running out of juice, you best go hide and recharge it." Bulat looks at Ash before doing just that.

A few minutes later Ash was in the dining hall with all of the other guests acting as a guard so he doesn't get noticed 'how long till they make their move?' he thought before hearing some strange music coming from upstairs 'I wasn't aware that they had musicians on this boat.' The music continued to play for a few minutes before Ash noticed that the other passengers were passing out 'that's strange, I wonder if… no there's no magic anywhere nearby which means there's an imperial arms user.' Upon realizing this, Ash headed out to the deck before drawing the great sword from its scabbard, upon reaching the deck Ash looked back and saw that the docks were a good distance away "seems that they aren't stupid, they planned this effectively and without any faults." Almost immediately a voice rang out behind him "hey there tinman." Ash turned around to see the face of someone resembling a beast "it's supposed to be naptime, and here I was gonna let you live if you were sleeping." Ash simply brought his sword up before saying "well I'm not really a big fan of music, especially music from Night Raid posers." He finished off coldly. The beast man replied "does this mean you think you're the real deal? I honestly thought you were a guard, what with that armour and all."

Ash immediately lowered down to a defensive stance, ignoring the comment "nice to see you actually have some experience in waving a sword around, that means that I'll be able to gain a lot more experience points for this." He says as he draws the strange axe from his back, "so you gonna attack or are you just going to stand there." All he got was silence as Ash was thinking of all the ways he could get under his guard, and then the beast man closed the distance and brought his axe down on Ash, only to be met with the floor boards as Ash rolled to the side faster than the beast man was able to process, before turning to face Ash who had repositioned five meters behind him "amazing you can dodge that after the music debuff!" he shouted over to him only to again be met with silence "that's ok" he then pulled his axe apart and threw one of the pieces while saying "let's see how you handle this!" Ash simply raises his sword and redirects the attack, only to hear it coming back to slice him open only to miss as he immediately backflips over it as it comes by. And immediately the beast man asks "hang on why do you have so much energy? Even if you didn't fall asleep, you should've been at least a little drowsy after the music stopped playing!" Ash simply looked at him smirking under his helmet, before Bulat came up and gave the beast man a good whack with his spear "you should learn to pay attention to your surroundings dumbass."

Bulat then lowered himself into a fighting position before Ash said "you could've shown up sooner you know." Bulat simply looked at their quarry before saying "I wanted to see what you were capable of before showing up." he then directed his words to the beast man "the name's Bulat of Night Raid, you can also call me hand-" he is then cut off by Ash landing one in the back of his head "Hey! What was that for?" Ash replied with "you were about to say something uncomfortable. And also, you should've spent more time fighting instead of talking." The beast man then raised his axe before saying "he's right you know. You should've spent more time fighting me!" just then two other people appeared and attacked the duo with the beast man only for Bulat to hit both the old and child sized men, while Ash bisected the beast man with an upward strike from his great sword, Bulat after knocking away the two who attacked turned to see Ash standing over a bloody mess of the beast man, "this guy would've been dead sooner had you actually intervened a bit quicker. Anyway, good job on knocking the other two off our backs." "Well back in my soldiering days I was known as the hundred man slayer." Off to the side a voice was heard saying "I believe it to be a hundred and twenty eight to be exact." Both Ash and Bulat turn to the source to see one of the attackers walking towards them "you played a vital role in getting rid of covert operatives back then did you not? I know that power and armour anywhere, it truly has been a while hasn't it old friend." Ash asked "are you referring to me or him?" clearly confused as both wore armour, the attacker replied "I'm referring to him you imbecile!" this annoyed Ash a bit but before he could say or do anything Bulat said "it's you... General Liver."

 _ **END OF CHAPTER 7: INCINERATE THE BEASTS PART 1**_

 **I Finally Finished This... Sorry For The Wait But I Lost The Will To Write When Bruts Died, Only Temporarily Though (If You Can Call A Month Temporal) Anyway Feel Free To Leave A Review. See you Later**


End file.
